Antibodies against tumor surface antigens

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to improved antibodies against tumor surface antigens and their use in the treatment of tumors. Of particular interest are highly stable, humanized, high affinity antibodies against carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), especially the antibody we have termed sm3E, which is derived from the scFv antibody MFE-23. Such antibodies have the potential for improved therapeutic efficacy.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to improved antibodies against tumor surface antigens and their use in the treatment of tumors. Of particular interest are highly stable, humanized, high affinity antibodies against carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), especially the antibody we have termed sm3E, which is derived from the scFv antibody MFE-23 Such antibodies have the potential for improved therapeutic efficacy.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Treatment of Cancer with Antibodies, and Tumor Targeting of Antibodies

Antibodies have been used to treat cancer for many years. There are currently 5 antibodies approved by the FDA as cancer therapeutics, more than ten in Phase III clinical trials, and several hundred more in Phase II and Phase I trials. Antibodies act to remove cancerous cells through several effector mechanisms. For antibodies that are fully human or chimeric, the Fc portion of the molecule can efficiently activate and interact with the human immune system. By this method, cells can be destroyed by soluble components of the immune system (complement) or through ADCC-mediated cell killing. Additionally, binding of the antibody to the target antigen can initiate a biological response that can lead to apoptosis. Finally, antibody molecules can be used as delivery vehicles to transport therapeutic moieties such as radioisotopes, toxins, or enzymes.

Tumor targeting by antibodies is a complex process that involves circulation and clearance from the bloodstream, diffusion or convection into bulk tumors or micrometastases, binding and release of antigen, and metabolism of antigen/antibody complexes. In order to better understand the processes that influence treatment success, several mathematical models have been developed to analyze the distribution, retention, and removal of full antibody molecules and antibody fragments from solid tumors (Thomas et al., 1989, Sung et al., 1992, van Osdol et al, 1991, Baxter et al., 1995). Most have found there to be an affinity ceiling for uniform penetration and retention. Weinstein and colleagues first proposed the idea of a “binding site barrier” in 1987 (Weinstein et al., 1987). This hypothesis states that antibodies with extremely high affinity would bind antigens at the periphery of the tumor first, which would act as a barrier to further penetration within the tumor. This would result in heterogeneous distribution of the antibody and consequently ineffective treatment. Several additional papers have been published which support this hypothesis with mathematical models (Fujimori et al., 1989, Fujimori et al., 1990, van Osdol et al., 1991, Weinstein and van Osdol, 1992). Subsequent experimental studies have confirmed the existence of this phenomenon (Juweid et al., 1992). Tumor microenvironment can also cause unexpected hindrances. While blood vessels may be more permeable to solute transfer in the tumor (Dvorak et al., 1995, Gerlowski and Jain, 1986), the tumor in general may be less vascularized (Jain, 1999). Tumors also have a high interstitial pressure, which prevents migration of macromolecules into them. Jain et al. have carefully examined the unusual pressure and convection patterns in bulk tumors both experimentally and by mathematical modeling, and have found surprising phenomena such as temporary reverse flows out of tumor tissue.

The first generation of therapeutic antibodies consisted of entire IgG molecules, the format naturally utilized by the mammalian immune system. However, protein engineering technologies have been developed for a wide variety of antibody fragments varying in size and valency. These smaller fragments are more highly diffusible, and therefore penetrate tumor tissue more rapidly. With the advent of directed evolution and display technologies, it is now possible to engineer extremely high affinity antibody fragments. In some instances, experimental biodistribution data indicates limiting returns in targeting as affinity is progressively improved.

Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA) and Antibodies thereto in Cancer Treatment

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) has long been identified as a tumor associated antigen (Gold and Freedman, 1965). Originally classified as a protein expressed only in fetal tissue, CEA has now been identified as present in several normal adult tissues. These tissues are primarily epithelial in origin, including cells of the colon, stomach, tongue, esophagus, cervix, sweat glands, and prostrate (Nap et al., 1988, Nap et al., 1992, Prall et al., 1996). Tumors of epithelial origin, as well as their metastases, contain CEA as a tumor associated antigen. While presence of CEA itself does not indicate transformation to a cancerous cell, the distribution of CEA is indicative. In normal tissue, CEA is restricted to the apical surface of the cell (Hammarstrom, 1999). As an example of normal tissue expression, a healthy adult excretes 50-70 mg of CEA in feces per day (Matsuoka et al., 1991). In contrast to normal tissue, cancerous cells tend to express CEA over the entire surface (Hammarstrom, 1999).

Carcinoembryonic antigen is a 180,000 kDa protein with approximately 50% carbohydrate content. It has seven domains, with a single N-terminal Ig variable domain and six domains homologous to the Ig constant domain (Williams and Barclay, 1988). Several distinct epitopes have been identified in CEA (Hammarstrom et al., 1989). Multiple monoclonal antibodies have been raised against CEA for research purposes and as diagnostic tools (Nap et al., 1992). More recently, single chain antibody fragments have been isolated from phage display libraries to be used in radioimmunodetection and radioimmunotherapy (Chester et al., 1994; Osbourn et al., 1999). Of particular interest is the MFE-23 scFv (Chester et al., 1994, WO95/15431, U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,691 to Chester et al.). This antibody fragment has been shown to effectively target colon cancer for radioimmunodetection in viva (Begent et al., 1996). MFE-23 has also been used in radioimmunoguided surgery of colorectal cancer (Mayer et al., 2000). MFE-23 has been produced as a fusion protein to carboxypeptidase G2 (CPG2) and TNFα as well. Both fusions have shown promise in therapy (Chester et al., 2000; Chester et al., 2000, Cooke et al., 2002).

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

As discussed above, the prevailing view in the literature is that increasing affinity of an antibody to a tumor antigen such as CEA above a certain level will not increase its efficacy, and may even result in ineffective treatment. However, we find that technological advances allowing the engineering of extremely high affinity antibody fragments raise new questions about the therapeutic payout of such antibodies and have set out to investigate the relationship between affinity and efficacy.

In order to better understand what processes are responsible for this limit, and if it can be overcome, a model of antibody penetration into tumor microspheroids was constructed. Microspheroids were modelled because they are a good physiological representation for micrometastases, which occur quite frequently in several forms of cancer. For example, up to 70% of patients with colorectal cancer eventually develop liver metastases (www.livertumor.org). Our model incorporates diffusion, antibody/antigen binding, and antibody/antigen complex degradation. Convection was explicitly not incorporated into the model. Through analysis of the simulation results and comparison to published experimental data, our goal was to understand the key variables for loading of the antibody and maximal tumor retention.

An appreciation that the antibody penetrates a tumor as a moving front allowed for comparison to the “shrinking core model” (SCM), derived to model particulate combustion or catalyst regeneration in classical chemical engineering literature. The SCM provides a simple analytical method that will be useful for predicting the effects of altered antibody pharmacokinetics, antibody molecular weight, antigen turnover rate, antigen expression level, and micrometastases size on antibody penetration and retention. We were thus able to discern the key variables for loading of the antibody and maximal tumor retention.

There are several key variables for retention of the antibody in the tumor. Stability of the antigen is of critical importance. For example, an antibody will not remain bound to an antigen that has been internalized and degraded. Also, the antibody should be engineered to bind the antigen with an off-rate less than or equal to the degradation rate of the antigen. Optimal loading favors the use of highly diffusible, small antibody fragments. Additionally and significantly, we have found that affinity does not restrict penetration for antibodies with a K_(D)<1 nM. This is counter to the accepted thinking in the field.

This theoretical grounding enables us to apply current techniques in protein engineering to produce improved anti-tumour antibodies with greater efficacy. We selected the MFE-23 scFv antibody to CEA (Chester et al., supra) as a target for improvement. In this study, MFE-23 was engineered to increase the retention time of the antibody in the tumor relative to normal tissue. This was accomplished through partial humanization of MFE-23, and maturation of the affinity and stability of the scFv.

Since MFE-23 was isolated from a murine phage library, there exists the possibility that its administration elicits an immune response in humans. This could in turn decrease the lifetime of the antibody in circulation. In order to reduce the likelihood of immunogenicity, the antibody was resurfaced to present a more “human” Fv framework surface (Pedersen et al., 1994; Roguska et al., 1994, and see also Boehm et al., 2000). Equilibrium titration verified that our resurfacing resulted in no detectable change in CEA binding affinity. We termed this resurfaced scFv hMFE.

We then addressed the affinity of MFE-23. We predict that increased affinity of the hMFE scFv will increase retention time of the antibody in a tumor, on the basis of the mathematical modelling detailed herein. A critical parameter determining tumor retention is the off-rate (k_(off)). After two rounds of mutagenesis and screening, several variants of hMFE were isolated which showed a 10-fold, 100-fold, and 1000-fold improvement in the off-rate over the original scFv, hMFE. This series of scFvs will enable us to confirm the impact of increased affinity on efficacy in anti-CEA tumor therapy. The greatest improvement corresponds to a half-life for binding to CEA of approximately 7 days (versus 10 minutes for hMFE). The two mutations of greatest interest in this regard are both in the light chain. The change that led to the greatest improvement in affinity, SV_(L)50L, is in the CDR 2 loop of the light chain. From inspection of the crystal structure, the side chain of this residue protrudes into the cavity where contact with the antigen may occur. The other mutation that increased the affinity is FV_(L)36L. It is not in a CDR loop and occurs at the interface of the light and heavy chain, directly below this cavity. Significantly, the off-rate achieved in this study is amongst the slowest known for antibody-protein antigen interactions.

A further parameter addressed in our study was the stability of the scFv. In order to function in a therapeutic setting, the scFv must be resistant to thermal denaturation at 37° C. (Willuda et al., 1999). Furthermore, stability has been shown to correlate closely with expression efficiency (Shusta et al., 1999), and the affinity matured hMFE mutants were found to express poorly. Our affinity improved mutants were therefore subjected to stability maturation. All stability improved mutants retained their affinity gains and soluble expression levels were greatly increased. Yeast cells displaying the stabilized, highest affinity mutant retained approximately 80% binding after incubation at 37° C. for 9 days. In addition, this mutant had comparable thermal stability to the wild-type hMFE scFv after restabilization. We have termed the most preferred mutant scFv produced herein sm3E.

By affinity maturing an antibody with a half-life equal to the turnover half-life of the antigen, we have engineered an antibody with effectively. Irreversible binding to CEA. Because CEA is a stable target with a long half-life, differences in tumor retention for the series of scFvs will be dominated by the off-rate of the antibody and not the half-life of CEA. We have therefore succeeded in producing new antibodies with the highly desirable anti-CEA specificity of MFE-23, lacking immunogenicity in humans and having high affinity, high stability and good expressibility. Our mathematical modelling studies show that, contrary to established thinking in the field, these antibodies will have enhanced therapeutic properties, which prediction can be confirmed via the series of scFvs we have generated. Such approaches will also be applicable to tumor surface antigens in general.

Accordingly, the invention provides an antibody specific to carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) with a dissociation constant of less than 5.0 nM for said antigen and comprising the following six CDRs, as shown in SEQ ID NO: 6 (with the exception of CDR (d)(ii)).

-   -   (a) Heavy Chain CDR 1: gly phe asn ile lys asp ser,     -   (b) Heavy Chain CDR 2: asp pro glu asn gly asp;     -   (c) Heavy Chain CDR 3: thr pro thr gly pro tyr tyr phe asp,     -   (d) Light Chain CDR 1:         -   (i) ser ser ser val pro, or         -   (ii) ser ser ser val ser;     -   (e) Light Chain CDR 2: leu thr ser;     -   (f) Light Chain CDR 3: arg ser ser tyr pro leu.

The invention also provides an antibody to a tumor surface antigen, said antibody binding to said antigen with a dissociation half time of one day or more at 37° C.

The invention also provides a composition comprising an antibody of the invention.

The invention also provides a pharmaceutical composition comprising an antibody of the invention and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier.

The invention also provides an antibody of the invention for use in a method of treatment of the human or animal body, or in a method of diagnosis practised on the human or animal body.

The invention also provides the use of an antibody of the invention in the manufacture of a medicament for the treatment of a tumor, or in the diagnosis of a tumor.

The invention also provides a method of treating a patient suffering from a tumor, said method comprising administering an antibody of any one of the invention to said patient.

The invention also provides a method of detecting a tumor comprising administering to a patient suspected of suffering from said tumor an antibody of the invention and detecting said label.

The invention also provides a nucleic acid sequence encoding an antibody of the invention.

The invention also provides a vector comprising such a nucleic acid sequence operably linked to sequences capable of securing expression of said antibody in a host cell.

The invention also provides a host cell comprising said vector.

The invention also provides a method of producing an antibody of the invention, said method comprising

-   -   (a) expressing said antibody in a host cell, and     -   (b) recovering said antibody, and optionally purifying said         antibody, and optionally     -   (c) purifying said antibody, and/or     -   (d) attaching to said antibody an anti-tumor agent and/or a         detectable label

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1: Antibody Retention

Qualitative analysis of percent tumor saturation as a function of time for steady intravenous infusion (solid line) and single bolus administration (dashed line). The cumulative effect of the antibody in the tumor over time can be measure by the area under the curve (AUC). The difference in the AUC between the two methods of administration is represented by the hatched area

FIG. 2: Movement of Antibody Front

The simulation was performed for an IgG with a constant antibody concentration of 100 nM and an antigen concentration of 800 nM. Antibodies with three different affinities were tested: K_(D)=10 nM (dashed line), K_(D)=1 nM (solid line), and K_(D)=0.1 nM (dotted line). Location of the moving front was captured (curve sets from right to left in the Figure) at 0.5 hrs, 3.8 hrs, 10.9 hrs, and 20 hrs

FIG. 3: Effect of Affinity on Time to load and level of loading

The simulation was performed for an scFv with a constant antibody concentration of 100 nM and an antigen concentration of 800 nM. Affinities ranging from 1 pM to 1 μM were tested. The time to reach 95% saturation of the tumor, as well as the equilibrium loading concentration were plotted

FIG. 4: Shrinking Core Model Moving Front

Simulation parameters are described in FIG. 2. The predicted location of the bound antibody front r_(c) as a function of time is indicated by the dashed vertical line.

FIG. 5: Comparison of Numerical Simulation to Shrinking Core Model

The time to reach 95% saturation of the tumor by the numerical simulation and shrinking core model was compared for a large range of parameters. The parameters tested were: affinity (1 pM-1 nM), antigen concentration (0.4-1.6 μM), antibody concentration (10-1000 nM), tumor size (100-300 um), accessible volume fraction (0.1-0.28), and diffusivity (14-80 μm²/s). IgG (●), scFv (X)

FIG. 6: Shrinking Core Model with Plasma Pharmacokinetics

The time to reach 95% saturation of the tumor by the numerical simulation and shrinking core model was compared for a large range of parameters. The parameters tested were affinity (1 pM-1 nM), antigen concentration (0.4-1.6 μM), tumor size (100-300 um), accessible volume fraction (0.1-0.28), diffusivity (14-80 μm²/s), and antibody plasma pharmacokinetics (τ_(1/2)=0.25−2 hours).

FIG. 7: Kinetic Phases of Loading and Retention

Simulations were performed to measure the percentage of antigen bound in the tumor as a function of time and antibody affinity. Antibody penetrates the tumor as in the shrinking core model, and then concentration decreases over time as 1) antibody concentration in the plasma becomes negligible and 2) the antibody dissociates from antigen and/or the antigen is degraded (shed or internalized). The antibody vs. time curves are bound by the antigen degradation curve. Antibody affinities 10 nM (short dashes), 1 nM (alternate long dashes and dots), 100 pM (solid line), 10 pM (dotted line), and 1 pM (long dashes).

FIG. 8: Effect of Antigen Stability on AUC

Simulations were performed with an antibody concentration of 300 nM and an antigen concentration of 840 nM. Antigen stability is represented as follows (curves from upper to lower): τ_(1/2)=2.4 hrs, τ_(1/2)=1 day, τ_(1/2)=10 days, τ_(1/2)=∞.

FIG. 9: Comparison to anti-erbB2 antibody fragments

Simulated results were compared to data from Adams et al., Cancer Res. 61: 4750, 2001. (A) Fractional tumor saturation profile from simulation for the series of scFvs (B). The antibody loading value at 24 hours from the simulation compared to the antibody retained (% ID/g) in the biodistribution study. C6G98A: τ_(1/2)˜5 sec (1); C6.5: τ_(1/2)˜110 sec (2); C6ML3-9: τ_(1/2)˜15 min (3); C6MH3-B1: τ_(1/2)˜3 hrs (4); C6-B1D2: τ_(1/2)˜19 hrs (5).

FIG. 10: Comparison to anti-EGFRIII antibody fragments

Simulated results were compared to data from Bigner et al., Int. J. Cancer 88: 962, 2000. Fractional tumor saturation profile from simulation for MRI: K_(D)=23 nM (solid line) and MRI-1: K_(D)=1.5 nM (dashed line). Percent injected dose per gram of tumor (% ID/g) from experimental data for MRI: K_(D)≈23 nM (●) and MRI-1: K_(D)=1.5 nM (▴).

FIG. 11: Comparison to anti-CEA antibody fragments

Simulated results were compared to data from Wu et al., Immunotechnology 2: 21, 1996. Fractional tumor saturation profile from simulation for T84.66/C28: K_(D)=0.45 nM (solid line) and T84.66/212: K_(D)=0.24 nM (dashed line). Percent injected dose per gram of tumor (% ID/g) from experimental data for T84.66/C28: K_(D)≈0.45 nM (●) and T84.66/212: K_(D)=0.24 nM (▪).

FIG. 12: Comparison to anti-CEA scFv-fusion protein

Simulated results were compared to data from Cooke et al., Bioconjugate Chem. 13-7, 2002. Fractional tumor saturation profile from simulation for MFE-23 scFv/TNFα fusion protein (solid line). Percent injected dose per gram of tumor (% ID/g) from experimental data for MFE-23 scFv/TNFα fusion protein (●).

FIG. 13: Titration of MFE-23 and humanized MFE-23 (hMFE)

Equilibrium binding constants K_(D) for CEA at 37° C. A) Plot of CEA binding (measured fluorescence) versus CEA concentration. B) CEA binding (normalized for different display levels) versus CEA concentration. Titrations were performed by labeling yeast cell surface-displayed scFvs with biotinylated-CEA at varying concentrations, and detecting binding with streptavidin-phycoerythrin and flow cytometry (Example 3) hMFE produced at 20° C. (K_(D)=8.3±0.5 nM) (●), MFE-23 produced at 20° C. (K_(D)=8.3±1.3 nM) (▪), hMFE produced at 37° C. (K_(D)=8.5±0.6 nM) (▴), MFE-23 produced at 37° C. (K_(D)=7.5±0.8 nM) (●). C) Soluble production of MFE-23 (1) and hMFE (2) at 37° C. for 48 hours. Additional lanes are the scFvs produced at 37° C. and 20° C. for varying amounts of time.

FIG. 14: Sort Data

Sort progression for hMFE library labeled at 0.2 nM biotinylated-CEA. CEA binding is on the Y-axis, number of fusions on the surface is on the X-axis.

FIG. 15: Titration and Off-Rate for Equilibrium Sort

Binding analysis of clones isolated from aggressive hMFE Library sort. A) Equilibrium Titration (Example 3). hMFE (k_(D)±8.5±0.5 nM) (●), m9B (k_(D)=0.8±0.1 nM) (▪), m10B (k_(D)=0.08±0.01 nM) (♦)B). Off-rate. Dissociation rates were measured by first labeling yeast displaying the scFv of interest with biotinylated CEA. Then, the labeled cells were washed and incubated with an excess of nonbiotinylated CEA. Dissociation of labeled CEA from the cells was followed at the single cell level by flow cytometry and streptavidin-PE labeling, as described in Example 3. hMFE (k_(off)=1.2±0.1×10⁻³ s⁻¹) (●), m9B (k_(off)=7.5±0.4×10⁻⁵ s⁻¹) (▪), m10B (k_(off)=6.0±0.4×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) (♦).

FIG. 16: Off-Rate of Series of Mutants

Off-rate analysis of clones isolated from hMFE library and hLib2 library sorts. m9B (▪), m10B (♦), m3E (koff=1.2+0.4×10−6 s−1) (●).

FIG. 17: Effect of V_(L)W47L mutation

Display levels were compared between each scFv and the scFv+V_(L)W47L. The solid gray histogram represents the scFv without W47L, the overlay is the scFv containing W47L. A) hMFE. B) m10B. C) m3E. D) Soluble production of mutants. From left to right, samples are: molecular weight ladder, empty lane, hMFE, m10B, m3E, hMFE47L, m10B47L, m3E47L.

FIG. 18: Destabilization of m3E and m3E47L

The two cysteines were removed from the light chain of m3E and m3E47 The number of scFvs on the surface is on the X-axis, CEA binding is on the Y-axis. All samples were labeled at 10 nM CEA. A) m3E. B) m3E-cysout. C) m3E-cys47L.

FIG. 19: Display Levels of Well-Expressed Mutants

Display levels were compared between each scFv and the scFv plus additional mutations. The solid gray histogram represents the scFv, and the overlay is the scFv containing the mutations. A) m9B. B) m10B. C) m3E.

FIG. 20: Soluble Production

Soluble production of mutants. A) His₆ western. B) Coomassie gel. Samples are hMFE (1), m9B (2), m10B (3), m3E (4), shMFE (5), sm9B (6), sm10B (7), sm3E (8). Description of mutations is in the text

FIG. 21: Affinity of Stabilized Mutants

A) The affinity of the stabilized mutants was verified by off-rate analysis. The measured off-rates were as follows: sm9B (k_(off)=1.1±0.09×10⁻⁴ s⁻¹) (▪), sm10B (k_(off)=8.3±0.2×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) (♦), sm3E (k_(off)=1.2±0.08×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) (▴). B) Equilibrium titration of sm3E (K_(D)=30±3 pM).

FIG. 22: Stability of hMFE and sm3E scFvs

The stability of soluble sm3E was compared to the hMFE scFv at elevated temperatures. Samples were incubated for 1 hour at the designated temperature and then labeled with biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. (See above). Fluorescence readings from incubation at all temperatures were normalized to the reading at 37° C. hMFE (open bars), sm3E (diagonal stripes)

FIGS. 23 and 24: Construction of T98A Mutants

To check the contribution of T98A mutation, this mutation was added to the hMFE, sm10B and sm3E scFcs off-rate analysis was performed with and without T98A.

In FIG. 23, the graph plotted circles represents MFE-23, squares=MFE-23, diamonds=hMFE+T98A.

In FIG. 24, cirlces=sm10B; squares=sm10B+T98A, diamonds=sm3F; crosses=sm3E+T98A.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEQUENCES

SEQ ID NO: 1/2—Nucleotide and amino acid sequence of MFE-23 This is based on the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NOS: 1/2 of WO95/15341 but begins from gln 27 of that sequence, which corresponds to position +1 (start heavy chain) of SEQ ID NOS: 3/4 and 5/6 herein. CDRs are shown in bold. Note that the position and length of the CDRs shown below correspond to the position and length of the CDRs shown in SEQ ID NOS: 3/4 and 5/6 herein. Slightly different positions and lengths are in some cases given in WO95/15341.

SEQ ID NO 3/4—Nucleotide (SEQ ID NO: 3) and amino acid (SEQ ID NO: 4) sequence of hMFE-23.

SEQ ID NO: 5/6—Nucleotide (SEQ ID NO: 5) and amino acid sequence (SEQ ID NO: 6) of sm3E.

SEQ ID NOS: 7/8—Primers used in the cloning of MFE-23.

SEQ ID NOS: 9/10—Oligonucleotides for HIS tag in secretion vector.

SEQ ID NOS: 11/12—Nested primers for shuffled amplification in construction and screening of hMFE library.

SEQ ID NOS: 13/14—Primers for W47L change.

SEQ ID NOS; 15-18—Primers for site-directed mutagenesis.

SEQ ID NOS: 19-22—Primers for high stability mutant.

SEQ ID NOS: 23-24 —Primers for T98A mutants.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Antibodies of the Invention

An antibody of the invention is specific to a tumor surface antigen. Preferably, said antigen is carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA).

An antibody of the invention may be of any type as long as it has the ability to bind to the tumor surface antigen. For example, it may be a complete IgG molecule. It may comprise two heavy and two light chains as in nature. Alternatively, it may be an antibody fragment such as a Fab or F(ab′)₂ fragment or an Fv or single-chain Fv antibody (scFv).

Preferably, the antibody of the invention will be an scFv ScFvs are advantageous from the point of view of delivery to tumours.

An antibody of the invention may be fully or partly humanised in order to minimise its immunogenicity in humans.

An antibody of the invention will typically have a dissociation constant (K_(D)) for its antigen of 10.0 nM or less, or 5.0 nM or less, more preferably 2.0 nM or less, 1.0 nM or less, 0.5 nM or less, 0.2 nM or less, 0.1 nM or less, 0.05 nM or less or 0.01 nM or less.

An antibody of the invention will typically have an off-rate of less than 10×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹, more preferably less than 5×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹, less than 2×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹, or less than 1.5×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹.

An antibody of the invention will desirably have an off-rate equal to or lower than the degradation rate of the antigen to which it binds. Put another way, an antibody of the invention will desirably have a half-life equal to or longer than the turnover half-life of the antigen. This ensures effectively irreversible binding of the antibody to the antigen. Thus, tumor retention of the antibody will be dominated by the off-rate of the antibody and not the half-life of the antigen.

An antibody of the invention will typically bind to its antigen with a dissociation half time of 6 hours or more, 12 hours or more, 1 day or more, 3 days or more, 2 days or more or 5 days or more.

Antibodies of the invention may include non-antibody sequences as long as the properties of the invention are retained. For example, epitope tags may be included. Two tags that may be included are HA tags and c-myc tags.

Antibodies to CEA

Anti-CEA antibodies of the invention will typically be derived from the MFE-23 scFv of Chester et al. (supra).

Typically, such an antibody will comprise the following six CDRs, as shown in SEQ ID NO: 6 (with the exception of CDR (d)(ii)):

-   -   (a) Heavy Chain CDR 1: gly phe asn ile lys asp ser.     -   (b) Heavy Chain CDR 2: asp pro glu asn gly asp,     -   (c) Heavy Chain CDR 3: thr pro thr gly pro tyr tyr phe asp;     -   (d) Light Chain CDR 1: (i) ser ser ser val pro, or         -   (ii) ser ser ser val ser.     -   (e) Light Chain CDR 2: leu thr ser.     -   (f) Light Chain CDR 3: arg ser ser tyr pro leu

Such antibodies may comprise the sequence of the MFE-23 antibody of SEQ ID NO: 2, said sequence having the following substitutions as shown in the sequence of the sm3E antibody of SEQ ID NO: 6:

-   -   (a) SVL50L (Serine to Leucine in light chain CDR 2); and/or     -   (b) FVL36L (Phenylalanine to Leucine between light chain CDRs 1         and 2); and optionally     -   (c) VLS31P (Serine to Proline in light chain CDR 1); and/or     -   (d) VLA13V (Alanine to Valine in the light chain upstream of CDR         1); and/or     -   (e) VLW47L (Tryptophan to Leucine between light chain CDRs 1 and         2); and/or     -   (f) VLM78V (Methionine to Valine between light chain CDRs 2 and         3).

Optionally, other substitutions, deletions and insertions may be present, substitution of up to 50, up to 30, up to 20 or up to 5 or 10 further amino acids outside the CDRs, and/or deletion or insertion of up to 5, up to 10, up to 20, up to 30 or up to 50 amino acids outside the CDRs, and/or insertion of up to 20 amino acids outside the CDRs (See the following references for examples of insertion and deletion mutations: J. Immunol Methods 2002 Jan 1; 259 (1-2): 43-53; J. Immunol Methods 2001 May 1; 251 (1-2): 137-49; Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 294, No. 3, December 1999, pp. 701-710; Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 291, No. 3, August 1999, pp 589-602).

Substitution (a) above is important to ensuring high affinity of MFE-23-derived antibodies to CEA. Substitution (b) also has a significant effect even though it is not in a CDR.

Preferably, an antibody of this type has both substitutions (a) and (b). More preferably it will also have at least two of three of substitutions (c)-(f), desirably all of them.

Of the further changes that may be made to MFE-23, changes that “humanize” the antibody are preferred: compare the sequence of MFE-23 (SEQ ID NO: 2) with that of humanised hMFE (SEQ ID NO: 4). Preferred changes thus include those set out in the following table. Desirably, 5 or more, 10 or more, 15 or more, 20 or more or 25 or more of these changes, or all of them, will be made. SEQ ID NO 2 Position SEQ ID NO 4 gln 5 glu leu 11 val arg 13 lys ser 14 pro thr 16 ala thr 23 lys glu 42 gly gly 44 arg ser 76 ala gln 82 gly thr 87 arg ser 88 pro thr 115 leu ala 144 ser ile 145 ser pro 150 val glu 152 asp lys 153 arg thr 157 ala thr 176 lys ala 194 ser ser 204 asp arg 211 ser glu 213 gln ala 214 pro ala 234 gly leu 240 ile

Particularly preferred antibodies of this aspect of the invention comprise the sequence of SEQ ID NO: 6 from position +1 (start light chain) to the beginning of the c-myc tag or the sequence of SEQ ID NO: 6 from position +1 (state heavy chain) to the beginning of the c-myc tag. An especially preferred antibody is sm33E, having the sequence of SEQ ID NO 6.

Desirably, MFE-23-derived antibodies of the invention will have an off-rate 10 or more times, 100 or more times, 500 or more times or 1000 or more times lower than that of MFE-23 itself.

Recombinant Production of Antibodies of the Invention

The invention provides nucleic acids encoding the antibodies of the invention. Such coding sequences may be DNA or RNA, preferably DNA. The coding sequences may have any codon usage but will preferably be codon-optimised for expression in yeast.

Coding sequences of the invention may be comprised in a vector, desirably an expression vector. Suitable vectors include plasmids and viruses. In an expression vector, the coding sequence will be operably linked to regulatory sequences that secure its expression in a host cell. Such sequences include promoters, enhancers and terminators. Desirably, the regulatory sequences will be capable of securing the expression of the antibody-encoding sequence in a yeast cell, e.g. a cell of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Host cells of the invention may be produced by introducing the vectors of the invention into cells by any means known in the art, e.g. by transformation or transfection. Yeast host cells are preferred.

Antibodies of the invention may be produced in any suitable manner. Typically they will be produced by expressing said antibody in a host cell of the invention and recovering said antibody from said cell, and optionally purifying said antibody. Purification may be carried out by any means known in the art, e.g. by affinity chromatography. His tags may be used for purification purposes.

Treatments and Diagnoses of the Invention

Whilst the antibodies of the invention may find utility as antibodies per se, they will desirably be attached to a detectable labels and/or an antitumor agent. In this regard, anti-CEA antibodies of the invention may be used in a similar manner to MFE-23, discussed herein (cf Chester et al., 1994, WO95/15431, U.S. Pat. No. 5,876,691 to Chester et al) which has been used to effectively target colon cancer for radioimmunodetection in vivo (Begent et al., 1996) and in radioimmunoguided surgery of colorectal cancer (Mayer et al., 2000).

Attachment to a detectable label will target the label to tumor cells and thus enable detection of tutors expressing the tumor surface antigen to which the antibody binds, and hence diagnosis of such tumors. Detectable labels may be short-lived radioisotopes such as ¹¹¹In, ¹²³I or ^(99m)Tc. Other labels, such as fluorescent labels may also be used in appropriate circumstances.

Attachment to an antitumor agent will target the antitumor agent to the tumor and thus effect treatment of the tumor. Antitumor agents include toxic agents such as chemotherapeutic agents and radioisotopes, enzymes which activate prodrugs, and cytokines. Suitable chemotherapeutic agents include anthracyclines. Preferred cytokines include TNF-alpha. Preferred enzymes for prodrug activation include carboxypeptidase G2 (CPG2).

Antitumor agents and detectable labels may be attached to antibodies of the invention by means known in the art. Where the label or agent is a polypeptide, it may be expressed as a fusion protein with the antibody.

Antibodies of the invention may be administered in any suitable manner known in the art. They will normally be administered in conjunction with a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. In clinical use, they will typically be administered parenterally, e.g. intravenously or intraperitoneally and the composition will thus be formulated for such routes of delivery.

A person of skill in the art will be able to determine a suitable dosage and dosage regimen based on his/her experience and assessment of the patient's condition. Suitable doses of antibodies are also known in the art, e.g. as discussed above in relation to MFE-23. As a guide, doses of 0.01 to 100 mg, e.g. 0.1 to 10 mg may be used.

Where the antigen is CEA, treatment or diagnosis of any tumor whose cells express CEA may be effected. Treatment and diagnosis of breast tumors is preferred. Treatment and diagnosis of colorectal tumors is another possibility.

EXAMPLES Example 1 Mathematical Modelling of Antibody Penetration and Binding in Tumor Microspheroids

Experimental Methods

Description of Model

A model was constructed to describe antibody penetration in tumor microspheroids as it relates to diffusion, antibody/antigen binding, and antibody/antigen degradation. The model is based on the equations derived by Weinstein and coworkers (van Osdol et al., 1991) with minor modification. Specifically, convection is not included in the model because flow is negligible within nonvascularized micrometasases. The basic model equations are as follows: $\begin{matrix} {\frac{{\partial A}\quad b}{\partial t} = {{D\frac{1}{r^{2}}\frac{\partial}{\partial r}\left( {r^{2}\frac{{\partial A}\quad b}{\partial r}} \right)} - {\frac{k_{on}}{ɛ}A\quad b\quad A\quad g} + {k_{off}B}}} & {{Equation}\quad 1} \\ {\frac{{\partial A}\quad g}{\partial t} = {R_{s} - {\frac{k_{on}}{ɛ}A\quad b\quad A\quad g} + {k_{off}C} - {k_{e}A\quad g}}} & {{Equation}\quad 2} \\ {\frac{\partial B}{\partial t} = {{\frac{k_{on}}{ɛ}A\quad b\quad A\quad g} - {k_{off}B} - {k_{e}B}}} & {{Equation}\quad 3} \end{matrix}$

The boundary conditions are specified by plasma pharmacokinetics and spherical symmetry. They are: zero antibody gradient at the center and specified surface antibody concentration. ${\frac{{\partial A}\quad b}{\partial r}(0)} = 0$ A  b(R) = ɛ  A  b_(p)(t)

With the following material balance: Ag _(t) =Ag+B

At time zero, the antibody concentration is equal to zero everywhere in the spheroid (Ab=B=0) and available antigen is equal to the total antigen present (Ag=Ag_(t)).

The variables are defined as follows:

Dependent Variable:

-   -   Ab=concentration of unbound antibody, [mol/(tumor volume in L)]     -   Ag=concentration of unbound antigen, [mol/(tumor volume in L)]     -   B=concentration of antibody/antigen complex, [mol/(tumor volume         in L]

Independent Variable:

-   -   r=distance from the center of the spheroid, [μm]     -   t=time, [seconds]

The following is a list of parameters:

-   -   D=antibody diffusivity in tumor, [μm²/s]     -   ε=volume fraction of tumor accessible to antibody     -   k_(on)=association rate constant, [M⁻¹s⁻¹]     -   k_(off)=dissociation rate constant, [s⁻¹]     -   k_(e)=rate constant for degradation of antigen and         antibody/antigen by endogenous metabolism, [s⁻¹]     -   R_(s)=rate of synthesis of new antigen, set equal to k_(e)Ag_(f)

The plasma concentration of the antibody at the microspheroid surface is determined from empirical two-exponential kinetics as follows Ab _(p)(t)=Ab _(n){α2^(−1/τ) ⁺ β2^(−1/τ) ^(β) }

-   -   Ab₀=initial antibody concentration in plasma at time zero,         [mol/L]     -   α,β=fractions of α and β elimination phases, respectively     -   τ_(α),τ_(β)=half-life of αand β elimination phases, respectively

A list of the parameter values for the model, as well as the literature references for the selected values, is contained in Table 1. For certain parameters, a range of values was tested in order to determine the optimal conditions. TABLE 1 Parameter values for model simulations Parameter Value Source Notes R 0-300 μm Groebe and Mueller- Klieser, 1996 D 14-80 μm²/s Berk, DA et al., 1997 Scaled to 37° C. by Stokes Einstein ε 0.1-0.28 Krol, A et al., 1999 Varies with antibody size k_(on) 10⁴-10⁶ M⁻¹s⁻¹ Adjustable parameter k_(off) 10⁻³-10⁻⁶ s⁻¹ Adjustable parameter k_(e) 10⁻³-10⁻⁶ s⁻¹ Baulida, J et al., 1996 Antigen dependent Worthylake, R et al., 1999 Bidart, JM et al., 1999 Stein, R et al., 1999 Press, OW et al., 1994 Kyriakos, RJ et al., 1992 Ag_(t) 10-1000 nM Baxter and Jain, 1991 Antigen dependent Press, OW et al., 1994 Worthylake, R et al., 1999 Ab 10-1000 nM Adjustable parameter τ_(α) 0.1-0.9 hr Begent, RH et al., 1996 (scFv) Milenic, DE et al., 1991 3-5 hr (IgG) Green, AJ et al., 2001 τ_(β) 3-5 hr (scFv) 26-72 hr (IgG)

The numerical solution was obtained with the Absoft Fortran 77 software package using the method of lines (IMSL MOLCH).

Shrinking Core Model

In order to test the numerical solution for accuracy, the simulations were tested against an analytical model. The Shrinking Core Model (SCM), an analytical method used to describe reaction kinetics in heterogeneous catalytic particles with a shrinking unreacted core, provides a situation which is analogous to antibody penetration within a microspheroid. The central assumption of the shrinking core model is that diffusion from the surface of the sphere to the internal reaction front is a slow process, and consumption of the surface reactant is extremely rapid at the reaction front at a critical radius r_(c). The antibody spheroid penetration model can be analyzed in a similar fashion by solving the following sets of equations: $\begin{matrix} {{{\frac{{\mathbb{d}^{2}A}\quad b}{\mathbb{d}r^{2}} + {\frac{2}{r}\frac{{\mathbb{d}A}\quad b}{\mathbb{d}r}}} = {{0\quad{\left( {{Assume}\quad{quasi}\text{-}{steady}\quad{state}\quad{diffusion}} \right)@r}} = R}},{{A\quad b} = {{A\quad{b_{0}@r}} = r_{c}}},{{A\quad b} = 0}} & {{Equation}\quad 4} \end{matrix}$

The relationship between the rate of disappearance of the antigen and the flux of the antibody to the core of the tumor by diffusion is given by equation 5: $\begin{matrix} {{\frac{\partial}{d\quad t}\left( {\frac{4}{3}\pi\quad r_{c}^{3}A\quad g_{0}} \right)} = {4\pi\quad r_{c}^{2}D\quad\frac{{\mathbb{d}A}\quad b}{\mathbb{d}r}}} & {{Equation}\quad 5} \end{matrix}$

Integration of equation 5 at the critical radius r_(c) and use of the solution from equation 4 yields the following equation which describes the movement of the reaction front at r_(c): $\begin{matrix} {{t = {t_{sat}\left( {1 - {3\left( \frac{r_{c}}{R} \right)^{2}} + {2\left( \frac{r_{c}}{R} \right)^{3}}} \right)}}{t_{tot} = \frac{R^{2}\left( {A\quad{g_{1}/ɛ}} \right)}{6{D\left( {A\quad b_{o}} \right)}}}} & {{Equation}\quad 6} \end{matrix}$

Equation 6 can then be used to predict the location of the bound antibody front r_(c) as a function of time when surface antibody concentration is held constant. From a therapeutic perspective, constant antibody concentration can only be accomplished through steady intravenous infusion. However, single bolus dosing is more generally practiced with antibodies. This necessitates consideration of the effect of antibody pharmacokinetics in the plasma. To adapt the shrinking core model to single bolus dosing, a new term will be introduced. For biodistribution studies, a measurement used to estimate the cumulative effect of the antibody in the tumor over time is the area under the curve (AUC). For constant antibody concentration, the product Ab₀τ_(sat) is equal to the time integral of the surface antibody concentration, the AUC (FIG. 1). In cases where surface antibody concentration is not constant (ie. single bolus infusion), the concentration of the antibody over time decrease in a fashion relative to its rate of removal from the blood stream (i.e. the plasma pharmacokinetics) (FIG. 1). For single exponential antibody pharmacokinetics in plasma, the corresponding AUC is given instead by Ab₀τ_(α)/In2, where τ_(α) is the plasma half-life for the antibody.

Validation of Model with Published Experimental Data

In addition to testing the numerical solution analytically, it was necessary to also verify its accuracy by comparing simulation results against published experimental data. To do this, several papers were selected from the literature. The papers chosen targeted several different antigens (ErbB2, EGFRvIII, and CEA) and encompassed more than one antibody molecule, differing in size and valency (scFv and scFv-fusion protein). The papers used for comparison are summarized in table 2. The parameter values extracted from each paper and used in the simulations are summarized in tables 3-6. TABLE 2 Papers Paper Target Antibody Molecule Adams et al., Cancer Res. 61: ErbB2 scFv (range of affinities; 4750, 2001 single time point) Kuan et al., Int. J. Cancer 88: EGFR scFv (two affinities; 962, 2000 multiple time points) Wu et al., Immuno. 2: CEA scFv (two affinities; 21, 1996 multiple time points) Cooke et al., Bioconjugate CEA scFv-fusion protein - 144 kDa Chem. 13.7, '02 (single affinity; multiple time points)

TABLE 3 Parameter Set for Adams et al., Cancer Res. 61: 4750, 2001 Parameter Value Notes R 300 μm D 80 μm²/s scFv ε 0.28 scFv k_(on) 4.1, 4.0, 7.6, 5.0, 6.9 scFvs: C6G98A, C6.5, (10⁵ M⁻¹s⁻¹) C6ML3-9, C6MH3-B1, C6-B1D2 k_(off) 1310, 63, 7.6, 0.6, 0.1 scFvs: C6G98A, C6.5, (10⁻⁴ s⁻¹) C6ML3-9, C6MH3-B1, C6-B1D2 k_(e) 6.67 × 10⁻⁴ s⁻¹ Baulida, J et al., 1996 Worthylake, R et al., 1999 Ag_(t) 1670 nM Worthylake, R et al., 1999 Ab 370 nM 20 ug per mouse (2 ml blood volume) τ_(α) 0.23 hr (0.9) Nielsen, UB et al., 2000 τ_(β) 5.7 hr (0.1) Nielsen, UB et al., 2000

TABLE 4 Parameter Set for Kuan et al., Int. J. Cancer 88: 962, 2000 Parameter Value Notes R 300 μm D 80 μm²/s scFv ε 0.28 scFv k_(on) 0.91, 7.8 (10⁵ M⁻¹s⁻¹) scFvs: MR1, MR1-1 k_(off) 2.1, 1.2 (10⁻³ s⁻¹) scFvs: MR1, MR1-1 k_(e) 6.67 × 10⁻⁴ s⁻¹ Baulida, J et al., 1996 Worthylake, R et al., 1999 Ag_(t) 1670 nM Worthylake, R et al., 1999 Ab 37 nM 2 ug per mouse (2 ml blood volume) τ_(α) 0.5 hr (0.8) τ_(β) 5 hr (0.2)

TABLE 5 Parameter Set for Wu et al., Immuno. 2: 21, 1996 Parameter Value Notes R 300 μm D 80 μm²/s scFv ε 0.28 scFv k_(on) 6.5, 10 (10⁵ M⁻¹s⁻¹) scFvs: T84.66/C28, T84.66/212 k_(off) 3.0, 2.5 (10⁻⁴ s⁻¹) scFvs: T84.66/C28, T84.66/212 k_(e) 8.0 × 10⁻⁶ s⁻¹ Stein, R et al., 1999 Ag_(t) 840 nM Baxter and Jain, 1991 Ab 7.4 nM 0.3-0.5 ug per mouse (2 ml blood volume) τ_(α) 0.14; 0.12 hr T84.66/C28; T84.66/212 τ_(β) 3.27; 4.8 hr T84.66/C28; T84.66/212

TABLE 6 Parameter Set for Cooke et al., Bioconjugate Chem. 13: 7, ′02 Parameter Value Notes R 300 μm D 14 μm²/s (MW = 144 kDa) ε 0.1 (MW = 144 kDa) k_(on) 4 × 10⁵ M⁻¹s⁻¹ MFE-23 scFv k_(off) 1 × 10⁻³ s⁻¹ MFE-23 scFv k_(e) 1.15 × 10⁻⁶ s⁻¹ Stein, R et al., 1999 Ag_(t) 840 nM Baxter and Jain, 1991 Ab 21.5 nM 6.2 ug per mouse (2 ml blood volume) τ_(α) 3 hr τ_(β) 50 hr Results Effect of Antibody Affinity on Tumor Penetration

Several investigators have observed the tendency of high affinity antibodies to penetrate less uniformly and remain bound at the outer shell of the tumor. This phenomenon, termed the “binding site barrier” (Weinstein et al., 1987), has been used as an argument against the development and use of high affinity antibodies for tumor therapy. To examine the broad features of antibody penetration into the microspheroid, simulations were performed with constant surface antibody concentration, in the absence of antigen degradation, for a range of antibody affinities (FIG. 2). As previously described, high affinity antibodies fill a “shell” at the rim of the sphere, and this shell moves progressively towards the center of the sphere. Because the antibody concentration is held constant in this simulation, the antibody penetrates the tumor as a moving front until all of the antigen binding sites are saturated. In a more therapeutically realistic situation, antibody concentration at the tumor surface is not held constant, and instead decreases as the antibody is depleted from the circulation. Hence, the “binding site barrier” effect is created by the dynamic interaction of pharmacokinetics with diffusion: if antibody concentration drops to negligible levels before the shell front has moved entirely to the center of the sphere, it will appear that the antibodies became “stuck” at a fixed distance from the surface, although what is actually observed is only a “freeze frame” of a kinetic process that stopped when antibody was cleared from the plasma.

Inspection of FIG. 2 shows that the lowest affinity antibody (K_(D)=10 nM) examined in this simulation penetrates faster and more uniformly than the other two, suggesting that the use of lower affinity antibodies may be more advantageous. This idea was tested more vigorously with antibodies ranging in affinity from 1 pM to 1 μM. More specifically, the time to reach 95% saturation of the tumor, as well as the equilibrium loading concentration, were simulated as a function of antibody affinity (FIG. 3). As expected, the lower affinity antibodies did in fact penetrate the tumor more quickly. However, the more rapid penetration had an explicit negative result from a therapeutic perspective. The antibody does not bind the antigen to a significant extent at low affinities; hence, at K_(D)>1 μM, penetration is extremely rapid but very little antigen is bound with antibody. These plots illustrate an intrinsic trade-off in these processes. antigen binding slows tumor penetration, but antigen binding is necessary to achieve the therapeutic benefit. It is important to note that the movement of the sharp, slowly moving front of bound antibody reaches the lower limit in speed at a K_(D)=1 nM, and further decrease of the K_(D) does not slow the movement of the front further. In other words, the “binding site barrier” penalty is fully paid once affinity is sufficiently high for complete antigen binding, and further affinity increases do not incrementally affect the rate of tumor penetration.

Comparison of Simulation to Shrinking Core Model

The moving front of antibody penetration shown in FIG. 2 is reminiscent of a similar occurrence described in classic chemical reaction engineering literature. Processes in heterogeneous catalytic particles are sometimes observed to produce such moving fronts with outer shells and inner cores. The Shrinking Core Model (SCM), an analytical method used to describe reaction kinetics in heterogeneous catalytic particles with a shrinking unreacted core, was derived to describe these phenomena. The central assumption of the shrinking core model is that diffusion from the surface of the sphere to the internal reaction front is a slow process, and consumption of the surface reactant is extremely rapid at the reaction front at a critical radius r_(c). The exact numerical simulations in FIG. 2 were compared to the simplified SCM derived above (FIG. 4). The predicted location of the bound antibody front r, as a function of time is indicated by the dashed vertical line. This location agrees closely with the antibody shell fronts identified for antibodies with affinities of K_(D)=1 nM or lower, indicating that the SCM approximation is reasonable for the high affinity limit. To test the validity of the SCM more rigorously, a range of affinities, antigen concentrations, antibody concentrations, and diffusivities were ised. The numerically simulated time for full tumor penetration was compared to the SCM approximated value (FIG. 5). The agreement between the two models is excellent for the IgG parameters, and somewhat less exact for scFv molecules. This discrepancy is most likely due to the fact that single chain fragments have an approximately 6-fold higher diffusivity than IgG molecules. As the diffusivity increases, the central assumption of the SCM model, that consumption of the surface reactant (binding to the antigen in this case) is extremely rapid at the reaction front and that diffusion from the surface of the sphere to the internal reaction front is a much slower process, begins to break down. Nevertheless, the SCM accurately predicts scFv saturation times (within 2-fold) for times less than 0.5 hour, a kinetic regime in which the slowness of tumor penetration is not a practical concern.

One of the most useful features to come out of the SCM derivation for antibody tumor penetration is the term t_(sat). Inspection of the term shows which parameters directly affect the rate of tumor penetration. The parameters R, Ag_(t), and ε are all related to the tumor physiology and are uncontrollable from the viewpoint of antibody engineering (although antigen concentration has been shown to be manipulated in certain cases). The time to reach saturation increases proportionally to the square of the radius of the tumor as well as the antigen concentration. It decreases with increasing tumor porosity. Terms that are accessible to engineering manipulatons are the diffusivity (D) and the antibody concentration (Ab₀). The diffusivity is a function of antibody size, and is approximately inversely proportional to the molecular weight. Hence, a smaller scFv would saturate the tumor six times faster than a full sized IgG. Finally, saturation is predicted to be inversely proportional to surface antibody concentration. By doubling this parameter, the time would be cut in half. Perhaps the most interesting information to come out of this analysis is the fact that the parameter of antibody affinity (K_(D)) is not contained in the SCM expression for t_(sat). For conditions well described by the SCM model, tumor penetration speed is independent of binding affinity. (Note, however, that as affinity is lowered to K_(D)>10 nM, the SCM approximation is no longer valid (FIG. 4)).

Spheroid surface antibody concentration was held constant in all of the simulations presented up to this point. Such conditions could be imposed clinically by steady intravenous infusion. However, single bolus dosing is more generally practiced with antibodies, and so the effect of antibody pharmacokinetics in the plasma is now incorporated into the analysis. First, to what extent can the t_(sat) formalism of the SCM be applied to bolus dosing? For steady antibody concentration, the product Ab₀t_(sat) is equal to the time integral of the surface antibody concentration, generally referred to as Area Under Curve (AUC). For single exponential antibody pharmacokinetics in plasma, the corresponding AUC is given instead by Ab₀τ_(α)/In2, where τ_(α) is the plasma half-life for the antibody (FIG. 1). We explored whether the critical antibody AUC value of R²(Ag_(t)/ε)/6D would predict tumor saturation values for bolus dosing, and the results are presented in FIG. 6. Given the simplicity of the SCM formalism, the required bolus antibody AUC is remarkably well predicted for a very broad range of parameter values. Hence the SCM makes the following experimentally testable prediction regarding the initial bolus dose required to obtain 95% microspheroid saturation: $\begin{matrix} {\left\lbrack {A\quad b} \right\rbrack_{o} = {1.5\left( \frac{\left( {\ln\quad 2} \right){R^{2}\left( {\left\lbrack {A\quad g} \right\rbrack_{o}/ɛ} \right)}}{6D\quad\tau_{1/2}} \right)}} & {{Equation}\quad 7} \end{matrix}$ Kinetic Phases and Antigen Stability

The time course of tumor antibody exposure can be considered in two qualitatively distinct kinetic phases: 1) uptake by passive diffusion and binding, as described above; and 2) retention of bound antibody in the tumor. The second kinetic phase will now be considered. Simulations were performed with time-varying antibody surface concentrations according to the plasma pharmacokinetic model, and antigen degradation was incorporated into the model. The results are shown in FIG. 7, as a function of antibody affinity. The qualitative shape of bound antibody profiles within the spheroid are represented above the plot. As the bound antibody front penetrates the sphere, one obtains an SCM-like distribution. However, following tumor saturation, the decrease in bound antibody occurs more uniformly throughout the tumor. Thus, the overall process can be broken into two distinct kinetic phases: tumor uptake, dominated by diffusion and well-described by the SCM; and tumor retention, dominated by (as demonstrated below) antigen turnover rate.

As a highly simplified measure of antibody pharmacodynamics, it is assumed that the time integral of the bound antibody within the spheroid is a gross measure of antibody effect on the tumor. This quantity, termed AUC_(tumor), is the area under the curves in FIG. 7. Although one would not necessarily expect a linear relationship between AUC_(tumor) and tumor cell killing, one might well expect a monotonic relationship, such that increased antibody exposure kills more tumor cells. Further expansion of this pharmacodynamic relationship for the various different potential payloads (radioisotopes, prodrug-cleaving enzymes, Fc-mediated ADCC, etc.) is beyond the scope of this chapter.

In FIG. 7, note that AUC_(tumor) increases markedly when affinity is increased from 10 nM to 1 nM, less so for an increase from 1 nM to 100 pM, and almost negligibly for a 100-fold further improvement of affinity to K_(d)=1 pM. Note also that antibody vs. time curves are bounded by the curve for antigen degradation.

As evidenced by FIG. 7, the therapeutic benefit of antibody therapy is limited by the antigen elimination. While many studies have focused on ranges in antibody affinities and antigen concentration, none to date have explicitly examined the role of antigen degradation on the effectiveness of treatment. Physiologically, the target antigen can be internalized or shed at significantly different rates. For example, erbB2 is internalized at a rate of 6.67×10⁻⁴ s⁻¹, μ is internalized at a rate of 1.9×10⁻⁴ s⁻¹, CD20 is shed at a rate of 8.0×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹, and CEA is shed at a rate from 1.2-80×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹ (Worthylake et al., 1999, Press et al., 1994, Stein et al., 1999). For this reason, the AUC delivered to the tumor was simulated as a function of both the antibody affinity and antigen stability (FIG. 2.8). For an antigen with a half-life of 2.4 hours, an affinity improvement from 1 nM to 1 pM (1000-fold) led to a rather disappointing 2-fold increase in the dose delivered to the tumor. Conversely, an antigen with a half-life of 10 days will result in a 50-fold increase in the therapeutic dose delivered to the tumor for the same 1000-fold affinity improvement. It can be easily seen that success of antibody based therapy is directly related to the antigen stability, such that targeting an antigen with a fast internalization or shedding rate will show little incremental benefit for large improvements in affinity. In other words, there is no advantage to engineering antibodies that bind an antigen that is no longer present.

Model Validation with Experimental Data

In order to test the accuracy of the model to predict results for in vivo testing of antibodies, several published experimental studies were selected for comparison. These studies examined the role of affinity and antibody molecule type on success of treatment. Several antigens were targeted, including erbB2, CEA, and EGFRvIII. In many cases, data published in these studies is in the form of percentage of injected dose retained per gram of tumor (% ID/g) at a given time point. While absolute direct number comparisons cannot be made with simulation data, relative trends can be observed.

The first study examined the effect of a 5000-fold improvement in affinity for scFvs targeting tumors expressing erbB2 (Adams et al., 2001). Specific experimental conditions axe listed in table 3. These same conditions were used in the simulation. For the simulation, the amount of the antibody retained in the tumor over time increases with increasing affinity up to a K_(D) equal to 1 mM (FIG. 9A). By taking the simulation value at 24 hours, this can be compared to experimentally measured % ID/g (FIG. 9B). There is excellent agreement between the simulated and experimental data. For both cases, the % ID/g of tumor increases up to a K_(D)≈1 nM, where the value plateaus. This result can be explained by examining the biological properties of the targeted antigen. ErbB2 is constituitively internalized at a rate of 6.67×10⁻⁴ s⁻¹ (τ_(1/2)=17 minutes) (Worthylake et al., 1999). Engineering antibodies to bind with a half-life greater than 17 minutes would be of no advantage because the antigen's time stability dictates that it would not be present. This is the reason the two higher affinity antibodies, K_(D)=120 pM (τ_(1/2)=3 hours) and K_(D)=15 pM (τ_(1/2)=15 hours), perform no better than the antibody with a dissociation constant of 1 nM (τ_(1/2)=15 minutes).

The second paper studied two scFvs with a 15-fold difference in affinity. These antibodies targeted an epitope on EGFRvIII. Experimental conditions selected from the paper to be used in the simulation are sumnmarized in Table 4. In this study, % ID/g was measured at five time points for both of the antibodies. Once again, there is good correlation between the simulated results and those measured in the biodistribution study (FIG. 10). For the higher affinity antibody (K_(D)=1.5 nM, k_(off)=1.2×10⁻³ s⁻¹), the amount retained in the tumor is approximately two times higher than for the lower affinity antibody (K_(D)=23 nM, k_(off)=2.1×10⁻³ s⁻¹). In this particular study, the antibody was injected directly into the tumor, which accounts for the much higher tumor retention (% ID/g) than that attained with the scFvs that targeted erbB2.

The final two papers investigated several antibody molecules targeting carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). Wu et al. studied two scFvs, constructed from the same monoclonal antibody (T84.66), but with amino acid linkers of different lengths connecting the variable fragments (Wu et al., 1996). T84.66/C28 was connected by a 28 amino acid linker (V_(H)-linker-V_(L) orientation, K_(D)=0.45 nM) and T84.66/212 was connected by a 14 amino acid linker (V_(L)-linker-V_(H) orientation; K_(D)=0.24 nM). Simulated results compared well with biodistribution data for T84.66/212; however, experimental results for T84.66/C28 were lower than that predicted by the simulation (FIG. 11). The linker used to construct T84.66/C28 may account for its poor performance. The longer linker may have interfered with association of the variable domains, making the fragment less stable and more vulnerable to protease degradation. The orientation of the fragment may have resulted in lower stability as well. If the C28 scFv was destabilized, the effective concentration of antibody in the bloodstream would be lower than the amount injected, which could lead to the discrepancy between simulated and experimental results. Cooke et al. examined the tumor targeting properties of a single chain antibody fragment/tumor necrosis factor fusion protein (Cooke et al., 2002). This fusion protein forms a trimeric structure of 144 kDa, approximately the same size as a full IgG antibody molecule. The fusion protein was radiolabeled with ¹²⁵I and percent injected dose per gram of tumor was measured at 3, 6, 24, and 48 hours post injection. Experimental conditions selected from the paper to be used in the simulation are summarized in Table 6. As compared to the other simulated data sets, the larger antibody fragment in this study reaches maximal saturation at a later time point (˜6 hours vs 30 minutes for the scFvs), which would be expected due to slower diffusion. The model once again does a good job in capturing the trend of antibody retention over time for this antibody and antigen system (FIG. 12).

Discussion

In this study, a mathematical model was developed to gain an improved understanding of the quantitative interplay among the rate processes of diffusion, binding, degradation, and plasma clearance in tumor microspheroids. This model was based largely on that derived by Weinstein and coworkers, with minor modifications. For example, as in Weinstein's models, convection was not incorporated into the model, leaving diffusion as the only process by which the antibody can penetrate the tumor. Through analysis of the simulation results and comparison to published experimental data, the goal was to understand the key variables for loading of the antibody and maximal tumor retention. With this information, it would be possible to design the optimal targeting agent.

The first area addressed was the impact of affinity on tumor penetration. With Weinstein's paper in 1987 introducing the concept of the binding site barrier, many investigators believed that the advantage of longer binding of high affinity antibodies did not outweigh the disadvantage of non-homogenous distribution of antibodies in the rumor. Experimental results also supported the binding site barrier hypothesis (Juweid et al., 1992). The limitation in many of the experimental approaches, however, was that low antibody concentrations used in biodistribution studies restricted the broad interpretations of the results. The analysis above shows a more accurate representation of the process by which an antibody penetrates the tumor. As a binding entity, the antibody molecule will diffuse through the tumor until it encounters free antigen that it can bind to. As available antigen is saturated, the antibody will continue to penetrate the tumor as a moving front, until all antigen is bound. Several papers which support the binding site barrier hypothesis also acknowledge that this effect can be overcome with an elevated antibody dose. Simulations performed in this study did confirm that lower affinity antibodies will in fact penetrate the tumor faster. However, the trade-off for this faster penetration is a lower level of antibody loading in the tumor, which is directly correlated to the therapeutic value of the antibody. This is another limitation to some of the previous experimental work (Saga et al., 1995). It has been hypothesized that antibody molecules must have an affinity greater than one nanomolar (K_(D)<10⁻⁹ Molar) to provide effective results (Schier et al., 1996). By comparing a high affinity antibody (K_(D)<10⁻⁹ M) to a non-binding antibody or one with very low affinity, conclusions can be somewhat misleading. There is a cost associated with binding to the antigen, but the cost does not continue to increase as the affinity increases. For antibodies with a dissociation constant equal to 1 nM (the point at which they are therapeutically valuable), the slowly moving front of bound antibody has reached its limit.

The observation that the antibody penetrates the tumor as a shell provides an opportunity for comparison to a well established model system. The Shrinking Core Model (SCM), derived to describe the reaction kinetics in heterogeneous catalytic particles with a shrinking unreacted core, has a diffusion and reaction profile similar to that shown for antibody molecules in a tumor. The analytical solution using the SCM shows excellent agreement with the simulation results across a broad range for several parameter values. The value of the derivation of the shrinking core model in terms of antibody penetration is the relationship that is developed between the time to reach tumor saturation and the other parameters (Equation 6). While certain parameters that affect saturation time are strictly defined by the tumor of interest (radius and antigen concentration), others can be controlled by the investigator (diffusivity, antibody concentration, and accessible volume fraction). Most notably, the antibody affinity has no impact on the saturation time. This simplified analytical approach can provide a roadmap for designing antibody molecules and treatment methods that provide the most optimal conditions for tumor penetration.

The benefit of high affinity antibodies would be seen in the retention of the antibody in the tumor. The time integral of the bound antibody in the tumor (AUC) is a measure of the antibody effect on the tumor. The percentage of the injected does per gram of tumor (% ID/g) is also a term used to measure the amount of the antibody retained at given time points. Several studies have found that high affinity antibodies (those with slower off-rates) do persist at the tumor longer than their lower affinity counterparts (Juweid et al., 1992, Viti et al., 1999, Kuan et al., 2000, Adams et al., 2001). However, this relative increase in tumor retention does not always seem to correlate with the increase in antibody affinity. One factor that significantly affects retention is the stability of the target antigen. If the antigen is shed from the surface or internalized at a fast rate (on the order of minutes to hours) and an antibody is designed to bind with a half-life on the order of days, very little improvement will be seen in the tumor retention for the ultra high binder versus one that bound on the order of hours. The simulations were performed in this study to explicitly examine the effect of antigen stability on tumor antibody retention. This work showed that the elimination rate of the target antigen was of critical importance to the change in the therapeutic effect of antibodies with increasing affinity. Antigen stability had not been investigated in previous modeling work.

It was also necessary to test the accuracy of the model for predicting in vivo antibody targeting results. Simulation results are measured as the fraction of antibody saturation in the tumor at a given time point. Experimental biodistribution data is often measured as the percentage of injected dose retained per gram of tumor (% ID/g). While absolute direct numerical comparisons cannot be made with simulation data, trends can be observed. To do this, several papers were selected from the literature. The first paper studied single chain antibody fragments targeting erbB2 that spanned four orders of magnitude in their off-rate. These scFvs were one of the first successes to show the ability of antibody engineering techniques to significantly improve off-rate kinetics (Schier et al., 1996). However, when their tumor targeting properties were examined in vivo, the results were less than encouraging (Adams et al., 2001). The conditions used in the biodistribution studies were used to simulate the tumor retention for comparison. The results from the model exhibited the same trend as the animal experiments, with a continued increase in retention of the antibodies with an affinity up to 1 nM (k_(off)=10×10⁻³ s⁻¹). The two higher affinity antibodies showed no statistical increase over the 1 nM scFv. While these results may appear to support the “binding site barrier” hypothesis, the outcome is actually dependent on the stability of erbB2. The targeted antigen is constitutively recycled with a half-life of approximately 17 minutes (Worthylake et al., 1999). Accordingly, antibodies with half-lives greater than the antigen half-life would show no additional benefit, as was the case here. Using the model prior to the experimental study would have predicted the plateau in the antibody retention that occurred as a result of the antigen internalization.

An additional paper was selected to see if the model could predict the antibody retention of scFvs at multiple time points, as compared to the single time point in the erbB2 study. An scFv was affinity matured by hot-spot mutagenesis to produce a variant that has an approximate 2-fold improvement in the off-rate (15-fold affinity improvement) (Beers et al., 2000). These two scFvs were then compared in simultaneous biodistribution studies by labeling each with a different radioisotope (Kuan et al., 2000). The modeling results were in good agreement with the experimental results for all five time points, ranging from 1 hour to 24 hours. For both results, the higher affinity antibody exhibited approximately 2-fold higher retention than the parental molecule. Once again, the model succeeded in predicting the relative retention of the two scFvs over the time course of the study.

The final papers examined the retention of several antibody molecules against carcinoembryonic antigen. CEA has been shown to be very stable, with a half-life ranging from one to seven days (Stein et al., 1999), and is one of the most stable antigens used for tumor targeting purposes. Because of its increased stability in comparison to erbB2 and EGFR, CEA biodistribution studies were selected for comparison to simulation data. Wu et al. studied scFvs and Cooke et al. studied a lager scFv-fusion protein (144 kDa). Simulated antibody retention showed a good correlation with experimental data for one scFv (T84.66/212) at several time points, but not the other (T84.66/C28). Since these two scFvs are comprised of the same variable fragments in different orientations and connected with linkers of different lengths, some other property is likely affecting the tumor retention. The T84.66/C28 scFv has a longer linker (28 amino acids) which may lead to lower stability. If the C28 scFv was destabilized, the effective concentration of antibody in the bloodstream would be lower than the amount injected. Although stability of the scFvs were not addressed in this study, lower stability may account for the discrepancy between the simulated and experimental results for the C28 scFv. Given that biodistribution data from single chain antibody fragments has only been analyzed thus far, the scFv-fusion protein was selected for comparison to study the models ability to predict antibody retention for larger antibody molecules. As compared to the other simulated data sets, the larger antibody fragment in this study reached maximal saturation at a later time point (˜6 hours vs ˜30 minutes for the scFvs), which would be expected due to slower diffusion. The simulation prediction of peak saturation matches with the experimental results. Additionally, there is qualitative agreement between the simulation and experimental results for the scFv-fusion protein.

In this study, a mathematical model was developed to gain an improved understanding of the quantitative interplay among the rate processes of diffusion, binding, degradation, and plasma clearance in tumor microspheroids. Observation that the antibody penetrated the tumor as a moving front allowed for comparison to the “shrinking core model” (SCM), derived to model particulate combustion or catalyst regeneration in classical chemical engineering literature. The SCM provides a simple analytical method that will be useful for predicting the effects of altered antibody pharmacokinetics, antibody molecular weight, antigen turnover rate, antigen expression level, and micrometastases size on antibody penetration and retention. Through analysis of the simulation results and comparison to published experimental data, we have also been able to discern the key variables for loading of the antibody and maximal tumor retention. Optimal loading favors the use of highly diffusible, small antibody fragments. Additionally, affinity is irrelevant and does not restrict penetration for antibodies with a K_(D)<1 nM. There are several key variables for retention of the antibody in the tumor. Stability of the antigen is of critical importance, since an antibody will not remain bound to an antigen that has been shed or internalized and degraded. Also, the antibody should be engineered to bind the antigen with an off-rate less than or equal to the degradation rate of the antigen.

Example 2 Design of a Stable, High Affinity Single Chain Antibody Against Carcinoembryonic Antigen for use in Tumor Immunotherapy

Introduction

In this study, MFE-23 was engineered to increase the retention time of the antibody in the tumor relative to normal tissue. This was accomplished through partial humanization of MFE-23, and maturation of the affinity and stability of the scFv. Since MFE-23 was isolated from a murine phage library, there exists the possibility that its administration may elicit an immune response. This could in turn decrease the lifetime of the antibody in circulation. In order to reduce the likelihood of immunogenicity, the antibody was resurfaced to present a more “human” Fv framework surface (Pedersen et al., 1994; Roguska et al., 1994). The crystal structure of MFE-23 shows structural similarity to another crystallized human antibody) (Boehm et al., 2000). This resemblance allowed for the determination of twenty-eight residues in MFE-23 that were over 30% solvent-accessible and chemically different or similar to the human antibody (TR19)(Boehm et al., 2000). For humanization of MFE-23, the residues suggested in Boehm et al. were changed to the corresponding residues in the human antibody. Equilibrium titration verified that altering these twenty-eight residues resulted in no detectable change in CEA binding affinity. This resurfaced scFv is termed hMFE.

Increased affinity of the hMFE scFv may increase retention time of the antibody in a tumor (cf Osbourn et al., 1996) and as predicted by mathematical modeling (See Example 1). A critical parameter determining tumor retention is the off-rate (k_(off)). After two rounds of mutagenesis and screening, several variants of hMFE were isolated which showed a 10-fold, 100-fold, and 1000-fold improvement in the off-rate over the original scFv, hMFE. The greatest improvement corresponds to a half-life for binding to CEA of approximately 7 days (versus 10 minutes for hMFE).

A final parameter addressed in this study was the stability of the scFv. In order to function in a therapeutic setting, the scFv must be resistant to thermal denaturation at 37° C. (Willuda et al., 1999). Furthermore, stability has been shown to correlate closely with expression efficiency (Shusta et al., 1999), and the affinity matured hMFE mutants were found to express poorly. Affinity improved mutants were subjected to stability maturation. All stability improved mutants retained their affinity gains and soluble expression levels were greatly increased. Yeast cells displaying the stabilized, highest affinity mutant retained approximately 80% binding after incubation at 37° C. for 9 days. In addition, this mutant had comparable thermal stability to the wild-type hMFE scFv after restabilization.

It is important to note that the off-rate achieved in this study is amongst the slowest known for antibody-protein antigen interactions. A further special significance of our panel of very stable antibody fragments is that they span three orders of magnitude in off-rate improvement. This series of scFvs will enable us to confirm the impact of increased affinity on efficacy in anti-CEA tumor therapy.

Experimental Protocol

Cloning of MFE-23 and bMFE Surface Display Plasmids

The MFE-23 scFv was PCR'ed from the MFE-23his vector (Casey et al., 1995) with the MFEtop and MFEbot primers (SEQ ID NOS: 7 & 8). The resulting 750 bp fragment was digested with NheI and BamHI, gel purified, and ligated into the yeast surface display vector, pCTCON. The pCTCON vector is a variant of pCT302 (Boder and Wittrup, 1997) that contains a unique BamHI site 5′ to the c-myc coding sequence. Twenty-eight residues of the MFE-23 scFv were identified for resurfacing (Boehm et al., 2000). The resurfaced humanized version (hMFE) was designed using yeast optimum codons with a NheI site immediately 5′ to the gene and a BamHI site immediately 3′ to the gene. The gene was synthesized by Synthetic Genetics (San Diego, Calif.). The hMFE scFv was excised from the Synthetic Genetics vector with NheI and BamHI and cloned into pCTCON. The two display vectors, pCTMFE23 and pCThMFE were transformed into yeast strain EBY100 (Boder and Wittrup, 1997) by the lithium acetate method of Gietz and coworkers (http://tto.trends.com). To test expression of the Aga2p-MFE-23 and Aga2p-hMFE fusions, cells were grown at 30° C. for 24 hours in SD-CAA (2% dextrose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 1% casamino acids) to an OD600=5.0-7.0. Cells were then transferred to SG-CAA (2% galactose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 1% casamino acids) to a starting OD600=1.0 and grown for 16-20 hours at 20° C. or 37° C.

To perform an equilibrium titration, cells displaying the MFE-23 and hMFE scFvs were labeled at multiple concentrations with biotinylated-CEA and incubated at 37° C. for 1-24 hours. In order to limit depletion of antigen, labeling volume was increased with decreasing CEA concentration. Cells were washed with cold PBS-BSA and labeled with a 1:100 dilution of biotinylated-9E10 on ice. Cells were washed and labeled with secondary reagents goat-anti-mouse-FITC (1:50) (Sigma) and streptavidin-PE (1100) (Pharmingen) on ice. Cells were washed and resuspended for analysis on a Coulter EPICS XL. The mean fluorescence of the labeled population was plotted against the CEA concentration, and data was fit to calculate the dissociation constant.

MFE-23 PCR Primers (SEQ ID NO: 7) MFEtop 5′-GTCAGTGCTAGCCAGGTGAAACTGCAGCAGTCTGGG-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 8) MFEbot 5′-GTTCACGGATCCTGCTTTCAGCTCCAGCTTGGTGCCAGC-3′

NhE I restriction site single underline BamHI site double underline.

Soluble Production and Detection of MFE-23 and hMFE

The pCTMFE-23 and pCThMFE vectors were digested with NheI and XhoI. The digests were isolated on a 1% agarose gel and the 750 bp scFvs were excised from the gel and purified with the Qiagen gel purification kit. The scFv was ligated into the pRS4420 vector (Boder et al., 2000), which was also digested with NhEI and XhoI and gel purified. The new vectors, pRSMFE-23 and pRShMFE, were digested with BamHI and XhoI to remove the c-myc epitope tag. The digests were isolated on a 1% agarose gel and the ˜6700 bp backbone was purified with the Qiagen gel purification kit. The oligos, HIStop and HISbot (SEQ ID NOS: 9 & 10), were annealed and ligated into the backbone. The resulting vectors, MFE23-his and hMFE-his, contain the scFv followed by a c-terminal 6-histidine tag. The two secretion vectors, MFE23-his and hMFE-his, along with the pRS314 vector were transformed into yeast strain YVH10 (Shusta et al., 1998) by the lithium acetate method of Gietz and coworkers (http://tto.trends.com). To test soluble expression of the scFvs, cells were grown at 30° C. for 48 hours in SD-SCAA (2% dextrose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 1% synthetic casamino acids (ura-, trp-, leu-)) to an OD600=5.0-7.0 Cells were pelleted and resuspended in SG-SCAA (2% galactose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 1% casamino acids (ura-, trp-, leu-) supplemented with 1 mg/ml of BSA) and grown for 36-48 hours at 20° C. or 37° C.

For detection of the scFv, samples were run on a 12% polyacrylamide gel and then transferred to a nitrocellulous membrane. The membrane was blocked in a milk solution (1.5 mg nonfat dry milk in 30 ml TBST (8 g/L NaCl, 3.6 g/L Tris Base, 1 ml/L. Tween 20 solution (pH=7.6)) at room temperature for 1 hour. Membrane was washed 1×15 minutes, 2×5 minutes in 30 ml TBST. Membrane was incubated with the tetra-his antibody (Qiagen) (1:800 dilution) for 1 hour at room temperature and was washed 1×15 minutes, 2×5 minutes in 30 ml TBST. The membrane was incubated with a goat-anti-mouse-HRP antibody (1:2000) and streptavidin-HRP (1.1500) for 20 minutes at room temperature. Membrane was washed 1×15 minutes, 4×5 minutes in 30 ml TBST. The membrane was developed with ECL reagents. The chemiluminescent signal was detected with the Bio-Rad Fluor-S Imager for two to thirty minutes. Samples were quantitated with the Quantity one software.

Oligos for HIS Tag in Secretion Vector (SEQ ID NO: 9) HIStop 5′-GATCCCATCACCATCATCACCATTAATAGC-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 10) HISbot 5′-TCGAGCTATTAATGGTGATGATGGTGATGG-3′ Construction and Screening of hMFE Library

A random scFv library of the hMFE scFv was created by adapting the nucleotide analogue method from Zaccolo (Zaccolo and Gherardi, 1999). The expression cassette of hMFE was amplified by PCR with the T3 and T7 promoter standard primers. Five mutagenic PCR conditions were used: 250 μM dPTP and 8-oxo-dGTP/5 cycles; 25 μM dPTP and 8-oxo dGTP/10 cycles; 2.5 μM dPTP and 8-oxo-dGTP/10 cycles; 25 μM dPTP and 8-oxo-dGTP/20 cycles, 2.5 μM dPTP and 8-oxo-dGTP/20 cycles. Other PCR components were: 1 ng pCThMFE, 250 μM each dNTP, 0.5 μM each primer, 3 units Taq polymerase (Gibco), 1× Gibco PCR buffer supplemented with 2 mM MgCl₂. The reaction was cycled as follows: 94° C. 1 minute, 50° C. 1 minute, 72° C. 35 minutes. PCR products from 10 and 20 cycles were isolated on a 1% agarose gel. Four 2200 bp fragments were excised from the gel and purified with the gel purification kit (Qiagen). PCR products from 5 cycles were diluted 1:10 for farther amplification. The PCR fragments were then amplified in the absence of the nucleotide analogues for 25 cycles using Taq polymerase. PCR conditions were identical as those listed above, with the exception of extension time at 72° C. This was changed to 3 minutes and 10 seconds. PCR products were purified using the PCR purification kit (Qiagen). Purified PCR fragments were digested with NheI and BamHI, gel purified, and ligated overnight at 16° C. into pCThMFE. Ligation reactions were transformed into ten aliquots of DH5a-FT cells (Life Technologies). Transformants were pooled and aliquots were plated to determine library size. The diversity was calculated, to be 10⁵. The library was amplified in LB/Amp50/Carb50 media at 37° C. and plasmid DNA was purified with the Qiagen Maxi-prep kit. Ten clones were selected for sequencing from the library and the mutagenesis rate was calculated to be 0 2%-5%. Library DNA was transformed into yeast strain EBY100. (Boder and Wittrup, 1997) by the lithium acetate method of Gietz and coworkers (http://tto.trends.com). Transformants were pooled in SD-CAA (2% dextrose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 1% casamino acids) and aliquots were plated to determine library diversity. The library was passaged twice in SD-CAA to reduce the concentration of untransformed EBY100.

The library was grown to an OD600=10.0 in SD-CAA. Cells were transferred to SG-CAA to an OD600=1.0 and grown for 18 hours at 37° C. The hMFE library was screened by the equilibrium method as described in Boder and Wittrup (Boder and Wittrup, 1998). The optimal biotinylated-CEA concentration was calculated from the mathematical model. Concentrations were selected to screen for 3-fold and 10-fold improvements. Yeast cells displaying mutated hMFE scFv were incubated in 0.35 nM or 0.2 nM biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. Cells were washed with cold PBS/BSA (8 g/L NaCl, 0.2 g/L KCl, 1.44 g/L Na₂HPO₄, 0.24 g/L KH₂PO₄, 1 mg/ml BSA) and labeled with a 1:100 dilution of the monoclonal antibody 9E10 on ice (Covance). Cells were washed with cold PBS/BSA and labeled with secondary reagents streptavidin-Phycoelythrin (1:100) (Pharmingen) and goat-anti-mouse-FITC (1:50) (Sigma) on ice. Cells were washed with PBS/BSA and resuspended at a concentration of 10⁷ cells/ml and sorted on a Becton Dickinson FACStar flow cytometer (Flow Cytometry Center, MIT Cancer Research Center) with a sort rate of approximately 4000 cells/sec. Cells were collected with gate settings designed to collect the cells displaying the highest PE fluorescent signal (CEA binding) per FITC fluorescent signal (scFvs on surface). Four rounds of sorting and regrowth were performed to isolate a highly enriched (100%) population of improved mutants. Mutants were analyzed from both the 3^(rd) and 4^(th) round sorts.

Analysis of Clones from Equilibrium Sort

Four individual clones were chosen at random from each of the 3^(rd) and 4^(th) sorts for analysis by equilibrium titration. For each clone, 10 samples of 10⁶ cells were incubated with varying concentrations of biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. for 1-24 hours. Cells were washed with PBS/BSA and labeled with a 1:100 dilution of the monoclonal antibody 9E10 on ice. Cells were washed and labeled with secondary reagents streptavidin-PE (1:100) and goat-anti-mouse-FITC (1:50). Cells were washed again and resuspended at a concentration of approximately 10⁶ cells/ml for analysis on a Coulter EPICS XL flow cytometer using Expo v.2 software. All clones with improved dissociation constants were selected for sequence analysis. Plasmids were rescued from the yeast cells using the Zymoprep (Zymogen) kit following the manufacture's protocol and transformed into XL1-blue competent cells (Stratagene). E. coli cultures were grown overnight in LB/AMP100 and plasmid DNA was purified using the Qiagen Miniprep kit. Sequencing of the scFv ORF was done using the dideoxy terminator method on a Perkin Elmer. Applied Biosystems Division model 377 DNA sequencer at the MIT Cancer Research Center Polymer Laboratory.

Construction and Screening of hLib2 Library

A second random scFv library based on clones isolated from the first library was constructed by adapting the sexual PCR method of Stemmer (Stemmer, 1994). The expression cassette of improved round one mutants as well as enriched pooled library was amplified with the T3 and T7 promoter standard primers. PCR products (approximately 10 μg) were digested to <200 bp with DNase I. Samples were equilibrated for 5 minutes at 15° C., then digested with 1 unit of DNase I (Boehringer) for 90 seconds at 15° C. DNase I was inactivated by heating at 90° C. for 10 minutes. Samples were purified with the Qiagen Qiax II kit. Five DNase digestion mixtures were used (Table 6), combining equal amounts of each component. Digested products were recombined following the method of Stemmer replacing Taq polymerase with Pfu polymerase and cycling for 45 cycles. Six recombination mixtures were used, one for each of the five digestion mixtures and one combining all five digestion mixtures PCR conditions were as follows 94° C. 3 minutes (1 cycle), 94° C. 1 minute, 55° C. 1 minute, 72° C. 1 minute+5 seconds/cycle (45 cycles); 72° C. 7 minutes (1 cycle). Final amplification was performed with primers (SEQ ID NOS: 10 & 11) nested approximately 50 bp and 100 bp from the ends of the scFv ORF and in the presence of 2.25 mM MnCl₂ and 0.375 mM MgCl₂ to introduce further mutations PCR products were purified by gel electrophoresis, digested with NheI and BamHI, and ligated into the pCThMFE backbone. A portion of the library (25%) was created by the nucleotide analogue method as described previously. Ligation reactions were transformed into XL10-Gold competent cells (Stratagene), pooled, and aliquots were plated to determine library diversity. The library size was calculated to be 2×10⁵. Library DNA was purified and transformed into EBY100 as above.

The second random hMFE library was selected with a kinetic screen as described in Boder (Boder and Wittrup, 1998). Yeast cells displaying mutant scFv were incubated in 2 nM biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. Cells were washed with cold PBS/BSA and then resuspended in 100-fold excess CEA (approximately 250 nM) and returned to 37° C.

Optimal competition time was calculated from Boder and Wittrup (Boder and Wittrup, 1998); however, this time was not used in order to reduce the length of the experiment. First round competition was 1 day, second round was 1 day, third was 1.2 days, and fourth was 2 days. Cells were washed with PBS/BSA and labeled with a 1:100 dilution of 9E10 (Covance) on ice. Cells were washed in PES/BSA and labeled with secondary reagents as described above. Cells were washed with PBS/BSA and resuspended to a concentration of 10⁷ cells and sorted on a Becton Dickinson FACStar flow cytometer. Four rounds of sorting and regrowth were performed to isolate a highly enriched (100%) population of improved mutants TABLE 6 DNase Digestion Mixture 1 2 3 4 5 3^(rd) sort (0.35 nM) 3^(rd) sort (0.2 nM) 3^(rd) sort (0.35 nM) 3^(rd) sort (0.35 nM) 3^(rd) sort (0.35 nM) 4^(th) sort (0.35 nM) 4^(th) sort (0.2 nM) 4^(th) sort (0.35 nM) 4^(th) sort (0.35 nM) 4^(th) sort (0.35 nM) hMFE Library hMFE Library 3^(rd) sort (0.2 nM) m10B 3^(rd) sort (0.2 nM) 4^(th) sort (0.2 nM) m6B 4^(th) sort (0.2 nM) m9B m10B m9B m6B HMFE hMFE Library

Nested Primers for Shuffled Amplification (SEQ ID NO: 11) CGDISP/L 5′-GGCAGCCCCATAAACACACAGTAT-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 12) CGDISP/R 5′-GTTACATCTACACTGTTGTTATC-3′ Analysis of Clones Isolated from Kinetic Sort

Ten individual clones were chosen at random from the 4^(th) sort for off-rate analysis. For each clone, 10⁷ cells were incubated in 2 nM biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. for 3 hours. Cells were washed with PBS/BSA and transferred to microcentrifuge tubes (10⁶ cells/tube) and incubated in 100-fold excess CEA (Calbiochem) at 37° C. for varying amounts of time. Cells were washed and incubated in a 1:50 dilution of 9E10 (Covance) on ice, then washed and incubated in secondary reagents streptavidin-PE (1:100) and goat-anti-mouse-FITC (1:50) on ice. Cells were washed and resuspended at a concentration of 10⁶ cells/ml for analysis on a Coulter Epics XL flow cytometer. All clones with improved off-rates were selected for sequence analysis. Plasmid rescue and sequencing was performed as described above.

Stability Screen of bMFE Library

The first random hMFE library was also screened for improved stability of the scFv. Cells were induced at 37° C. Yeast cells were incubated in 10 nM biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. Cells were transferred to microcentrifuge tubes, washed with ice cold PBS-BSA, and incubated in a 1:100 dilution of 9E10 (Covance) on ice. Cells were labeled with secondary reagents as described previously. Cells were sorted at a concentration of 10⁷ cells/ml on a Becton Dickinson FACStar flow cytometer. Cells were sorted with gate settings designed to collect the highest FITC signal for the CEA binding population. Three rounds of sorting and regrowth were performed to isolate an enriched population of better-displayed mutants. Sixteen mutants were analyzed from the third sort. For each clone, cells were labeled with 10 mM bio-CEA and 9E10. Six clones with higher display levels were selected for sequence analysis. Plasmids were rescued and sequenced as described previously. The single common stabilizing mutation, V_(L) W47-L, was added back to m10B and m3E with site directed mutagenesis. The primers used are shown below as SEQ ID NOS: 13 & 14.

Primers for W47L Change (SEQ ID NO: 13) W47Ltop 5′-GGTAAAAGCCCAAAGTTGTTGATTTATTTGACATCCAACTTGGC-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 14) W47Lbot 5′-GCCAAGTTGGATGTCAAATAAATCAACAACTTTGGGCTTTTACC-3′

Nucleotide changes are underlined.

Soluble Production of Mutants

The pCTm10B, pCTm3E, pCTm10B47L, and pCTm3E47L vectors were digested with NheI and BamHI. The digests were isolated on a 1% agarose gel and the 750 bp scFvs were excised from the gel and purified with the Qiagen gel purification kit. The four scFvs were ligated into the MFE23-his vector, which was also digested with NheI and BamHI and gel purified. Insertion of the product was confirmed by restriction digest. The secretion plasmids were transformed into the yeast strain YVH10 as previously described. Soluble production was performed as previously described, with protein induction at 37° C. for 48 hours. Samples were detected by an anti-his₄ western.

Construction of Destabilized scFv Library

The two cysteines in the light chain of m3E and m3E47L were changed to valine and alanine, respectively. The Quikchange kit from Stratagene was used to perform site directed mutagenesis, following the manufacturer's protocol. The primers used are shown below as SEQ ID NOS: 15-18. Two random scFv libraries were created based on m3E-V_(L)cysout and m3E-V_(L)cys47L using the nucleotide analogue method. The expression cassette of each scFv was amplified by PCR with the T3 and T7 promoter standard primers. Three mutation PCR conditions were used: 250 μM analogues/5 cycles, 25 μM analogues/12 cycles, 2.5 μM analogues/12 cycles. Amplification, purification, and ligation were performed as described previously. Ligation reactions were transformed into ultramax DH5α-FT cells (Invitrogen). Both libraries were 10⁵ in size. Growth of transformants and plasmid purification were performed as described previously.

Primers for Site-Directed Mutagenesis (SEQ ID NO: 15) V_(L)1CYStop 5′-GATAGATGAAACATCGCTGTTAGCGCATCCTCTAGTGTC-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 16) V_(L)1CYSbot 5′-GACACTAGAGGATGCGCTAACAGCGATGTTTACTCTATC-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 17) V_(L)2CYStop 5′-GGATGCTGCAACCTACTATGCCCAGCAAAGGTCCTC-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 18) V_(L)2CYSbot 5′-GAGGACCTTTGCTGGGCATAGTAGGTTGCAGCATCC-3′

Nucleotide changes made are underlined.

Screening of Destabilized scFv Libraries

For the m3E-V_(L)cysout library, cells were incubated in 5 nM biotinylated-CEA and 1:50 9E10 at 37° C. Cells were washed with cold PBS/BSA and resuspended in a 1:50 dilution of goat-α-mouse-FITC and 1:100 streptavidin-PE and incubated on ice. Cells were washed with cold PBS/BSA and resuspended to a concentration of 10⁷ cells/ml for sorting. For the m3E-V_(L)cys47L library, cells were incubated in 1 nM biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. Cells were washed with PBS/BSA, resuspended in a 1:50 dilution of 9E10 and incubated on ice. Cells were washed with cold PBS/BSA and resuspended in a 1:50 dilution goat-α-mouse-FITC and 1:100 streptavidin-PE and incubated on ice. Cells were washed with cold PBS/BSA and resuspended to a concentration of 10⁷ cells/ml for sorting on a Beckton Dickinson FACStar flow cytometer. Sort windows were set to collect the cells with the highest CEA binding per number of scFvs on the surface for both libraries. Three rounds of sorting and regrowth were performed to isolate a highly enriched population for both sorts. Twenty clones were analyzed from each of the 2^(nd) and 3^(rd) sorts of the m3E-V_(L)cys47L library. For each clone, cells were labeled with 1 nM biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. and 9E10 on ice. Ten clones with higher display levels and CEA binding were selected for sequence analysis. Twenty clones were analyzed from the 3^(rd) sort of the m3E-V_(L)cysout library. For each clone, cells were labeled with 5 nM biotinylated-CEA at 37° C. and 9E10 on ice. Five clones with higher display levels and CEA binding were selected for sequence analysis. Plasmids were rescued and sequenced as described previously.

Construction of More Stable High Affinity Mutant

Four mutations were selected from the destabilized library sorts. The Multi-Quikchange kit and Quikchange kit from Stratagene were used to add these mutations back to hMFE47L, m9B47L, m10B47L, and m3E47L with site directed mutagenesis following the manufacturer's protocol. The primers used to make these changes are shown below as SEQ ID NOS: 19-22. Insertion of the mutations was confirmed by sequence analysis.

Primers used for High Stability Mutant A13Vbot 5′-CTCTATCGCCAACAGAAACAGACATGGAGCTTGG-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 19) N20Ttop 5′-GTTGGCGATAGATGAACCATCGCTTGTAGCGC-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 20) S31Ptop 5′-GCGCATCCTCTAGTGTCCCATATATGCACTGG-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 21) M78Vtop 5′-GTTTGACTATTAGCTCAGTGCAGCCAGAGGATGC-3′ (SEQ ID NO: 22)

Nucleotide changes are underlined.

Soluble Production of High Stability, High Affinity Mutant

The restabilized hMFE, m9B, m10B, and m3E scFv display vectors were digested with NheI and BamHI. The digests were isolated on a 1% agarose gel and the 750 bp scFv was excised form the gel and purified with the Qiagen gel purification kit. The scFvs were ligated into the MFE23-his vector, which was also digested with NheI and BamHI and gel purified. Insertion of the scFv was confirmed by restriction digest and sequence analysis. The secretion plasmid was transformed into the yeast strain YVH10 as previously described. Soluble production was performed as previously described, with protein induction at 37° C. for 48 hours. Samples were detected by an anti-his₄ western.

For large scale production of each of the mutants, a 5 ml culture was grown for 36-48 hours at 30° C. in SD-SCAA (2% dextrose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 1% synthetic casamino acids (ura-, trp-, leu-)). The 5 ml culture was then used to inoculate a 1 L culture, which was grown for 36-48 hours at 30° C. in SD-SCAA. Cells were pelleted and transferred to a 1 L culture of SG-SCAA (2% galactose, 0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 1% casamino acids (ura-, trp-, leu-) supplemented with 0.42 mg/ml of BSA) and induced at 30° C. for 48 hours. The supernatant containing the scFv was concentrated with an Amicon stirred ultrafiltration cell (molecular weight cut-off of 10 kDa) and exchanged 200-1000 fold with column buffer (300 mM NaCl, 50 mM NaH₂PO₄, pH=7.9). The scFv was purified from the yeast supernatant using the histidine tag by IMAC (immobilized metal-affinity chromatography). Supernatant was incubated with nickel resin (Qiagen) for 2 hours at room temperature and then loaded onto a column. Resin was washed with five to seven column volumes with wash buffer (300 mM NaCl, 50 mM NaH₂PO₄, 20 mM Imidazole, pH=7.9). The scFv was eluted from the column with elution buffer (300 mM NaCl, 50 mM NaH₂PO₄, 250 mM Imidazole, pH=7.9). The protein eluted predominantly in the second and third elution fractions. All fractions containing scFv were combined and samples were exchanged with PBS to reduce imidazole concentration to less than 1 mM.

Soluble Binding Assays

In order to assess the stability of the scFvs, a 96-well plate (Immulon 2 HB-Dynex) was coated with an anti-his₄ antibody (Qiagen) at a concentration of 10 ug/ml overnight at 4° C. Sample wells were blocked with blocking solution (PBS, 0.02% NaN₃, 3% BSA) for 2 hours at room temperature. The plate was washed 4 times with TBST (200 mM NaCl, 50 mM Tris, 0.1% Tween-20, pH=8.0). The scFv sample was incubated at 37° C., 70° C., and 84° C. for 1 hour in binding buffer (PBS, 0.05% Triton x-100, 1 mM PMSF, 0.5 mM lodacetamide, 2.5 mM EDTA, 0.02% NaN₃, 0.1% BSA). Samples were then incubated with 25 nM biotinylated-CEA for 1 hour at 37° C. The scFv/biotinylated-CEA solution was added to the wells and incubated for 1 hour at 37° C. The plate was washed 5 times with TBST. A 1:1000 dilution of streptavidin-Europium (Wallac) in assay buffer was added to the wells and incubated at 4° C. for 30 minutes. The plate was washed 7 times with TBST. Enhancement solution was added to each of the wells and incubated at room temperature for 20 minutes. Fluorescence was measure with a Victor 1420 Multilabel Counter.

Results

Production and Affinity Measurement of MFE-23 and Humanized MFE-23

Two general alternative approaches have been described for humanizing a murine Fv. “Loop grafting” involves substitution of murine CDRs into a homologous human framework, followed by fine tuning of several key framework residues (Baca et al., 1997; Rader et al., 1998). “Resurfacing” involves changing only the solvent exposed residues in a murine framework to their human homologs. A possible pitfall of resurfacing, which has not yet been experimentally reported, is potential retention of T cell epitopes involving buried murine framework residues. However, a benefit of resurfacing is that it generally has less negative impact on antigen binding affinity. The open reading frames of the MFE-23 scFv and humanized MFE-23 (hMFE) scFv were subcloned into the yeast display vector, pCTCON, a variation of pCT302 (Boder and Wittrup, 1997) containing a BamHI site. This construct contains a HA tag N-terminal and a c-myc tag C-terminal of the scFv, to allow detection of scFv expression independent of CEA-binding. The DINA and protein sequences of hMFE are given below as SEQ ID NOS: 3 & 4. Display of the full length fusion of each scFv was confirmed on the yeast surface by labeling with an anti-c-myc antibody. Both scFvs also bound biotinylated carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). Single chain antibody fragments are often only produced at 20° C. in the yeast display system due to instability of the protein (Boder and Wittrup, 1997). Antibody production was also tested at 37° C. to measure the relative stability of MFE-23 and hMFE. Higher levels of each scFv were detected on the surface (as measured by fluorescence) for production at 37° C. versus 20° C. An equilibrium titration was performed to measure the dissociation constant (K_(D)) of MFE-23 and hMFE at 37° C. Both scFvs bound CEA with a similar K_(D) (FIG. 13). MFE-23 and hMFE were also produced solubly at 37° C. Resurfacing did not alter CEA binding affinity, and was found to slightly increase soluble expression levels.

hMFE Equilibrium Sort

In order to affinity mature the hMFE scFv, random mutagenesis was performed on the entire scFv with an error rate from 0.2-5%. The error rate was controlled over this range by using the mutagenic nucleotide analogues 8-oxo-dGTP and dPTP and by varying the number of PCR cycles (See above). The resulting library contained 10⁵ clones. The library was transformed into EBY100, the yeast surface display strain, over-sampling the library size by ten-fold in order to insure that the yeast library contained all of the diversity of the DNA library. An equilibrium sort was performed to isolate scFvs with an improved dissociation constant. Optimal selection parameters were calculated as previously described (Equation 8) (Boder and Wittrup, 1998). The optimal labeling concentration was determined based on the K_(D) of hMFE, the signal to noise ratio (S_(r)), and the desired improvement in the dissociation constant over wild-type (k_(t) fold decrease in K_(D)). [L] _(opt) =K _(D,hMFE)/(S _(r) *k _(r))^(0.5)  Equation 8

The K_(D) of hMFE was measured to be 8.5 nM on the yeast surface (FIG. 13). The signal to noise ratio was calculated as the mean fluorescence units of CEA labeled at fully saturated versus the mean fluorescence with no CEA. For a 3-fold and 10-fold improvement in the K_(D), the optimal CEA labeling concentration was calculated to be 0.35 nM and 0.2 nM, respectively. Two labeling concentrations were selected in order to ensure isolation of clones that were modestly improved as well as clones that showed greater improvement. A highly enriched population of improved scFvs was isolated after four sorts with both labeling conditions. The progression of the enrichment for the more stringent conditions, CEA concentration equal to 0.2 nM, is shown in FIG. 14. Four clones were analyzed by equilibrium titration from each of the third and fourth sorts (FIGS. 14D and 14E) and all had an improved dissociation constant. Seven unique clones were isolated (Table 7). TABLE 7 Mutants from First Equilibrium Library Sort Mutant m2B m5B m6B m9B m10B m17B m18B CDR K_(D) nd nd nd 0.80 0.08 nd nd # times 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 found Heavy G8 D E53 Q H2 D101 Y H H3 Y102 C S113 G Light F36 L S50 L L L L L L L2 Q89 L

Six of the seven clones contained the V_(L)S50L mutation in the CDR 2 loop of the light chain. One clone, m10B, contained only the S50L mutation. Since m10B maintains high affinity for CEA when the other mutations are not present, only the S50L change is necessary for the improvement in affinity. The highest affinity clone (m10B) has a dissociation constant of 0.08 nM (FIG. 15A) and an off-rate of 6.0×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹ (FIG. 15B). This corresponds to a 100-fold improvement in the affinity and a 200-fold improvement in the off-rate over the wild-type scFv hMFE. The only clone that did not contain the S50L mutation was m9B. It has a dissociation constant of 0.8 nM and an off-rate of 7.5×10⁻⁵ s⁻¹ (FIG. 15), which represent a 10-fold and 16-fold improvement over hMFE.

hLib2 Kinetic Library Sort

To improve the affinity further, a second library was made by random mutagenesis and DNA shuffling (hLib2). For random mutagenesis (approximately 25% of the final library), conditions were the same as those used to create the first library. Several different populations were combined for the shuffled portion of the library. These included: the third and fourth sorted populations from the modest and stringent equilibrium sorts, the first hMFE library, hMFE, m9B, and m10B. The resulting library contained 2×10⁵ clones. A kinetic sort was used to isolate clones with a slower off-rate. Optimal selection conditions were calculated as previously described (Equation 9) (Boder and Wittrup, 1998). The optimal competition time was determined based on the off-rate of the best mutant from the first sort (m10B), the signal to noise ratio (S_(r)), and the desired improvement in the off-rate (k_(t) fold decrease in k_(off)). k _(off,m10B) t _(opt)=0.239+2.05 log k _(t)+(2.30−0.759 k _(t) ⁻¹)log S _(r)  Equation 9

The k_(off) of m10B was measured to be 6.0×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹. The signal to noise ratio was calculated as the mean fluorescence units of CEA labeling with no competition versus the mean fluorescence with no CEA. For a 3-fold improvement in the k_(off), the optimal competition time with non-fluorescent CEA was calculated to be 7 days. In order to reduce the time necessary to isolate improved clones, competition times shorter than the optimal time were selected. Mutants with slower off-rates were isolated by competition with non-fluorescent CEA for 1-3 days (1^(st) sort—1 day; 2^(nd) sort—1 day; 3^(rd) sort—1.2 days, 4^(th) sort—2 days). A highly enriched population was isolated after four sorts. Ten clones were analyzed by competition and all had a slower off-rate. Eight unique clones were isolated (Table 8). Seven of the eight clones contained the V_(L)S50L and V_(L)P36L mutations. The most improved mutant (m3E) has a measured off-rate of 1.2×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹ (FIG. 16). m3E is the combination of m9B and m10B from the previous cycle of mutagenesis and screening. The very slow dissociation kinetics for m3E/CEA are expected to correspond essentially to irreversible targeting in vivo (see Discussion below), indicating that further affinity maturation is not warranted. TABLE 8 hlib2 Library Mutants Mutant m1E m2E m3E m4E m5E m6E m7E m8E CDR k_(off) 1.2 1.8 2.6 (10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) # times 1 1 2   1 2 1 1   1   found Heavy E53 Q Q Q Q H2 N54 K H2 F69 L S82b F N93 Y T98 A H3 F100c S H3 Light S24 N F36 L L L L L L L S50 L L L L L L L L L2 S56 P P P P P M78 V 3.3.2 hMFE Library Stability Sort

Unfortunately, increased affinity appears to directly correlate with decreased expression for the isolated mutant series (FIG. 17). As a practical matter, it was necessary to improve expression yields significantly. In order to accomplish this, a stability screen was performed. A correlation has been previously shown to exist between surface display levels and thermal stability of the protein, as well as soluble protein production (Shusta et al., 2000). The initial hMFE library was sorted for increased display levels of the scFv in the non-affinity matured context. Cells were labeled at a CEA concentration of 5 nM. This concentration was chosen in order to isolate mutants that were improved in display levels only and not in affinity. After three sorts, sixteen clones were analyzed for increased display levels. Six exhibited a 2.5-fold improvement in display, four of which were unique clones (Table 9). All four clones contained the V_(L)W47L mutation, which was responsible for the increased display levels. This mutation was added to the m10B and m3E clones to check if display levels were improved as well. Addition of this mutation increased display levels 2.5 and 1.5-fold, respectively (FIG. 17). Soluble expression levels were also tested. The presence of V_(L)W47L significantly increased production for hMFE, m10B, and m3E (FIG. 17D), however further improvements in expression were still needed. TABLE 9 hMFE Library Stability Mutants Mutant m4G m8G m9G m15G CDR Display Improvement 2.5 2.5 2.5 2.5 # times found 3 1 1 1 Heavy I51 V E53 Q H2 N93 Y Light W47 L L L L Destabilization Followed by Restabilization

Since the most affinity-improved mutant was still not produced at levels comparable to the wild-type scFv hMFE, it was necessary to further improve soluble production for this clone. Removal of the pair of cysteines in either the heavy or light chain causes the loss of the disulfide bond for that fragment and consequently lower stability. Previous work has shown that the cysteines can be replaced with a valine and alanine and then mutated to isolate clones that improve the stability of the scFv in the absence of the disulfide bond. Reintroduction of the disulfide bond will then further stabilize the scFv (Proba et al., 1998). The two cysteines were pairwise removed from the heavy chain or the light chain of m3E and replaced with valine and alanine. Curiously, removal of the V_(H) cysteines does not significantly alter expression of m3E. By contrast, removal of the V_(L) cysteines destabilizes m3E significantly (FIG. 18). It can be seen that introduction of W47L restabilizes the disulfide deleted V_(L), but not back to wild-type levels. With this in mind, two libraries were constructed based on m3E and m3E47L. The new constructs, m3E-cysout and m3E-cys47L, were used as the template for two new libraries. Random mutagenesis was performed on the entire scFv with an estimated error rate from 0.2-3%. The error rate was controlled over this range by using the mutagenic nucleotide analogues 8-oxo-dGTP and dPTP and by varying the number of PCR cycles (See above). Both libraries contained 10⁵ clones. The libraries were labeled at a CEA concentration of 2.5 nM (m3E-cysout library) and 0.5 nM (m3E-cys47L). A higher CEA concentration was used with the m3E-cysout library because too little CEA binding was detected at the lower concentration. Stabilized clones were isolated by enriching for those cells with the highest display levels and CEA binding. Twenty clones were analyzed from the third sort of the m3E-cysout library. Nineteen were improved over m3E-cysout. Five were sequenced, four of which were unique (Table 10). Forty clones were analyzed for increased display levels and CEA binding from each of the second and third m3E-cys47L library sorts. All forty were improved over m3E-cys47L. Ten of the most improved clones were sequenced, nine of which were unique (Table 10). Mutations that were already present are underlined. Several mutants became stabilized by reverting the F36L affinity mutation back to phenylalanine. This result is consistent with the library being a comprehensive sample of the point mutations since the F36L reversion is a known (albeit trivial and undesirable) stabilizing mutation. TABLE 10 Stabilized Mutants Mutant m1I m2I m5I m7I m1J m7J m16J m19J m20J m31J m35J m37J m40J CDR # times 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 found Heavy V2 A K19 R F27 L H1 M34 V T57 A Q64 R R83 G N93 T Y100a H H3 F100c S H3 Light A13 V V N20 T I T S29 G S31 P P P L1 F36 L L L L L L L L L W47 L L L L L L L L L L I48 V S50 L L L L L L L L L L L L L L2 N53 H M78 V V L96 P L3 Creation of a Well-Expressed, High Affinity scFv

A total of three to four mutations isolated from the stability sort were added back to the affinity mutants containing V_(L)W47L by site-directed mutagenesis in order to create the final series of affinity mutants. These affinity improved clones contained the following additional mutations: m9B-V_(L)N20T, V_(L)S31P, V_(L)W47L, and V_(L)M78V; m10B-V_(L)N20T, V_(L)S31P, V_(L)W47L, and V_(L)M78V, m3E-V_(L)A13V, V_(L)N20T, V_(L)S31P, V_(L)W47L, and V_(L)M78V. The V_(L)N20T, V_(L)S31P, V_(L)W47L, and V_(L)M78V mutations were also added to the hMFE scFv. The DNA and protein sequences are given below as SEQ ID NOS: 5 & 6. Introduction of these mutations increased the display level 4-fold, 5-fold, and 6-fold for m9B, m10B, and m3E, respectively (FIG. 19). The soluble expression level was increased for the series as well. The shMFE scFv is made at approximately 20 mg/L, sm9B˜17 mg/L, sm10B˜12.5 mg/L, and sm3E is made at approximately 8 mg/L. This level of production for sm3E is a 100-fold improvement over the m3E scFv. In fact, scFv bands are now visible on a coomassie gel, whereas original scFvs were not visible (FIG. 20). The off-rates were relatively unchanged (FIG. 21). The final well-expressed, high affinity scFv has a dissociation constant equal to 30 pM and an off-rate equal to 1.2×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹.

Stability of the final mutant was also assessed and compared to the stability of the wild-type hMFE scFv. After incubation at 37° C. for 9 days, yeast displaying sm3E retained approximately 80% binding to CEA. Similar values were obtained for hMFE. The soluble version of the sm3E mutant had comparable stability to the wild-type hMFE scFv at elevated temperatures after restabilization as well (FIG. 22). Since the high affinity mutant without the stabilizing mutations (m3E) is made poorly, a direct comparison between soluble m3E and sm3E cannot be made. However, sm3E does have similar thermal stability properties as hMFE and the soluble expression level is approximately four times higher than hMFE for the well-expressed high affinity mutant.

Construction of T98A Mutants

The T98A mutation was added to hMFE, sm10B, and sm3E with the Quikchange kit from Stratagene using primers T98Atop. (SEQ ID NO: 23) T98Atop (CGAAGGGACACCAGCTGGTCCTTACTATTTCG and (SEQ ID NO: 24) T98Abot (CGAAATAGTAAGGACCAGCTGGTGTCCCTTCG

Insertion of the mutation was confirmed by sequence analysis. Off-rate analysis was performed as previously described at 37° C.

Results

In order to check the contribution of the T98A mutation isolated from previous affinity maturation studies, this mutation was added to the hMFE, sm10B, and sm3E scFvs. Off-rate analysis was performed on the yeast surface at 37° C. for the scFvs with and without T98A. For the wild-type, humanized version (hMFE), addition of this mutation led to a modest 1.5-fold improvement (hMFE: k_(off)=0.9±0.04×10⁻³ s⁻¹; hMFE+T98A: k_(off)=0.6±0.02×10⁻³ s⁻¹) (FIG. 1). For sm10B and sm3E, addition of T98A led to a small improvement for sm10B (sm10B: k_(off)=8.2±0.4×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹; sm10B+T98A: k_(off)=6.8±0.2×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) and no improvement for sm3E (sm3E & sm3E+T98A: k_(off)=1.2±0.1×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) (FIG. 2).

Discussion

In this study, the MFE-23 scFv antibody fragment was engineered to improve tumor targeting through the use of directed evolution and yeast surface display. To accomplish this goal, three properties were addressed: immunogenicity; affinity, and stability. A series of scFvs was engineered that span three orders of magnitude in off-rate and are extremely stable at 37° C. In addition, the likelihood of immunogenicity was reduced via framework resurfacing. As a result, these designed molecules can be tested in a therapeutic setting to reconcile the importance of affinity in tumor targeting.

The current state of the art in antibody engineering is the use of “fully human” antibodies from either transgenic mice (Mendez et al., 1997) or repertoires displayed on phage (Knappik et al., 2000). However, decades of research with classic mouse hybridoma technology has produced many legacy mouse antibodies with interesting binding specificity, such as MFE-23. Rather than abandon these lead molecules, it is of interest to adapt them to reduce immunogenicity via humanization. The effect of resurfacing twenty-eight residues of the MFE-23 scFv on binding affinity was found to be negligible. This result is a major advantage of this humanization technique. The crystal structure or homology model of a murine scFv can be compared to that of a human antibody to look for structural similarity. It is essential to find a human antibody with the greatest domain resemblance so as not to change the antibody framework during humanization. The humanized scFv was also designed with yeast optimal codons. This design characteristic and humanization of the scFv led to increased soluble production levels over the MFE-23 scFv.

In order to affinity mature the hMFE scFv, the entire scFv was subjected to mutagenesis because amino acids not located in the CDR loops can often contribute to affinity gains (Low et al., 1996; Saviranta et al., 1998; Boder et al., 2000; Daugherty et al., 2000). The nucleotide analogues dPTP and 9-oxo-dGTP were used since higher error-rates can be achieved than with conventional error-prone PCR, and higher rates of mutagenesis more effectively search sequence space (Zaccolo and Gherardi, 1999; Daugherty et al., 2000). DNA shuffling was also performed in subsequent steps because random recombination of mutations tends to be more efficient than manual selection and recombination of the changes. The most improved clone (m3E) is simply the combination of FV_(L)36L and SV_(L)50L from the previous cycle of mutagenesis and screening. Both libraries constructed in this study were approximately 10⁵ in size, which would be considered small by comparison to phage display libraries. However, the dramatic affinity improvements obtained indicate that size was not a limiting factor in this case. The mutations of interest are both in the light chain. The change that led to the greatest improvement in affinity, SV_(L)50L, is in the CDR 2 loop of the light chain. From inspection of the crystal structure, the side chain of this residue protrudes into the cavity where contact with the antigen may occur. The other mutation that increased the affinity is FV_(L)36L. It is not in a CDR loop and occurs at the interface of the light and heavy chain, directly below this cavity. Its contribution to CEA binding is not as readily apparent as that at position 50. The crystal structure of MFE-23, as well as a homology model of the CEA/MFE-23 interaction, has led to speculation as to the location and importance of certain contact residues (Boehm et al., 2000; Boehm and Perkins, 2000). Most of the CEA contacts in the theoretical model of the complex involve residues located in the CDR loops of the heavy chain. There is a band of six acidic residues in MFE-23 (Asp-H31, Asp-H52, Glu-H53, Asp-H56, Glu-H58, and Glu-L1) that appears to interact with a band of six basic residues in CEA (Boehm and Perkins, 2000). Previous mutational studies have also highlighted the importance of several residues in the H3 loop (Read et al., 1995). The V_(H)Y100bP mutation eradicated binding, a V_(H)E53K change decreased binding, and the V_(H)T98A mutation led to a modest improvement in binding. While all six CDR loops were shown to interact with CEA in the homology model, it is possible that the loops of the heavy chain were already optimized for this interaction. While several mutations were isolated which were located in the CDR loops of the heavy chain, they seem to be neutral in effect.

The hMFE scFv was already quite stable at 37° C. prior to affinity maturation. Single chain antibody fragments are often only produced at 20° C. in the yeast display system due to instability of the protein (Boder and Wittrup, 1997). However, higher levels of the hMFE scFv were detected on the surface when produced at 37° C. than at 20° C. Unfortunately, increased affinity appeared to directly correlate with decreased expression for the isolated mutant series. This necessitated screening for higher display of the scFv, which has been shown to correlate with the soluble expression level and thermal stability of the protein (Shusta et al., 2000). The goal of this screen was to engineer the affinity mutants in such a manner as to return soluble expression capacity and thermal stability to at least the level of the hMFE scFv. A total of five stabilizing mutation were selected as significant from the three stability sorts. Four to five of these changes were added to each of the affinity mutants. In the cases where less than five of the changes were incorporated in the stabilized mutants, inclusion of the additional mutations did not confer any greater stability. All of the stabilized mutants contained V_(L)N20T, V_(L)S31P, V_(L)W47L, and V_(L)M78V. Position 20 was resurfaced in the humanization portion of the project to asparagine. The change to threonine was a reversion back to the original MFE-23 residue. It is not unusual in the case of resurfacing to need to selectively change residues back to their original amino acid. The key is to find a balance between the desired goal, humanization in this case, and any potential drawbacks such as a loss in soluble production levels and/or stability. The change to leucine at position 47 was isolated in the first sort and proved to significantly increase soluble production levels and stability for all clones. This mutation was also isolated from the destabilized, cysteine removed library. Position 78 in the light chain is a buried residue in a pocket away from the CDR loops. The change to valine may have created better packing of the side chains within this pocket. In the course of humanization, residues 77,79, and 80 were all changed to the corresponding ones in the human antibody. It is also possible that these three changes dictated the change at position 78. The V_(L)S31P mutation is located in CDR 1 of the light chain. While inclusion of this change was mildly important for increasing soluble expression levels, it was incorporated to offset small affinity losses as a result of the other changes. The V_(L)A13V mutation was only included in the stabilized version of m3E. This residue is not solvent exposed, with its side chain facing into the same pocket as position 78. The change from alanine to the larger side chain of valine may also fill a gap within this pocket. It is interesting to note that for the highest affinity mutant, the stabilized version (sm3E) is only six-fold better displayed, but its soluble expression level increased 100-fold from ˜0.08 mg/L to 8 mg/L. This difference highlights a caveat to this approach. While the general progression holds that as surface display levels increase, so do soluble expression levels, the magnitude of this improvement is not always proportionally correlated. The high affinity mutant was also improved in its stability characteristics. Yeast cells displaying sm3E retained approximately 80% binding to CEA after incubation at 37° C. for 9 days. The sm3E mutant had comparable stability to the wild-type hMFE scFv at elevated temperatures after restabilization as well. Through the stabilization process, we were able to return the highest affinity mutant to similar thermal stability as the hMFE scFv. Addition of the five stabilizing mutations to the high affinity mutant also increased soluble production levels 4-fold over the wild-type hMFE scFv.

We have created a humanized version of the MFE-23 scFv with higher affinity, stability, and expression levels in yeast. The highest affinity mutant isolated in this study has the slowest off-rate engineered for an antibody against a protein antigen using yeast surface display. It is also amongst the slowest for known antibody-protein antigen interactions. Although we had achieved a similar ‘off rate’ at room temperature (1.1×10⁻⁶) with a previous mutation of MFE-23 (CDRH3; Thr 102-Ala), the resulting affinity (K_(D)) of this mutant was only 2.7×10⁻¹⁰ (Read et al 1995). This is approximately 10× lower overall affinity for CEA than sm3E, due to an accompanying slower ‘on rate’. Previous affinity maturation studies against protein antigens using phage display produced several scFvs or Fabs with affinities in the picomolar range (Yang et al., 1995; Schier et al., 1996; Pini et al., 1998). Yang and coworkers engineered a 13 pM Fab (k_(off)=1.2×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) against the human envelope glycoprotein gp120 of HIV-1. This was accomplished by CDR walking mutagenesis (Yang et al., 1995). Schier et al. produced a 15 pM scFv (k_(off)=8.0×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) against the tumor antigen erbB2 by mutagenesis of the V_(L) and V_(H) CDR3 loops (Schier et al., 1996). Pini and coworkers designed a 54 pM scFv (k_(off)=6.0×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹) against the ED-B domain of fibronectin by mutagenesis of CDR residues (Pini et al., 1998).

Beyond the implications in the field of directed evolution, we have engineered a series of scFvs that may prove valuable in a therapeutic setting. These single chain fragments span three orders of magnitude in off-rate against the tumor associated carcinoembryonic antigen, the greatest with a half-life of approximately 7 days. The work presented in Example 1 above highlights the importance of engineering antibodies against stable cell surface antigens. Success of antibody treatment can be dependent upon the turnover of targeted antigen. Several antigens routinely used as targets cover a broad range of values for internalization or shedding of the antigen. ErbB2, a protein targeted in several forms of cancer, is internalized with a half-life of ˜17 minutes (Worthylake et al., 1999). CD20, a B-cell surface antigen used in the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, is shed with a half-life of 1 day (Press et al., 1994). The kinetics of CEA synthesis and shedding has been measured previously for human cancer cell lines. Stein et al. (1999) note that a radiolabeled antibody binding CEA on a medullary thyroid carcinoma cell line is only 50% catabolized in 7 days. Shi et al. (1983) examined CEA distribution, synthesis, and release in several different colon cancer cell lines. One can estimate shedding half-lives from the reported net synthesis rates, netrelease rates, and CEA contents for the cell lines SKCO-1, LS174T, and HCT48. These estimates range from 3 to 16 days for the CEA shedding half time in cell culture. The shedding rate is also shown to vary with cell density. Clearly, these indirect estimates on cell lines are at best an estimate of the situation in a micrometastasis or tumor in vivo. Plasma clearance half-lives for CEA have been reported, but in order to convert these to shedding half-lives in vivo one needs synthesis rates and tumor CEA levels, which were generally not determined. However, the available empirical evidence indicates that CEA shedding is a slow process, with a half life on the order of several days to two weeks. By affinity maturing an antibody with a long half-life, comparable to the turnover half-life of the antigen, we have therefore engineered an antibody with effectively irreversible binding to CEA. Because CEA is a stable target with a long half-life, differences in tumor retention for the series of scFvs will be dominated by the off-rate of the antibody and not the half-life of CEA. With this in mind, the molecules designed in this study can be used to confirm the benefits of high affinity antibodies in tumor therapy.

Antibody Sequences

SEQ ID NO: 1/2—Nucleotide and amino acid sequence of MFE-23. This is based on the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NOS: 1/2 of WO95/15341 but begins from gln 27 of that sequence, which corresponds to position +1 (start heavy chain) of SEQ ID NOS: 3/4 and 5/6 herein. CDRs are shown in bold. Note that the position and length of the CDRs shown below correspond to the position and length of the CDRs shown in SEQ ID NOS: 3/4 and 5/6 herein. Slightly different positions and lengths are in some cases given in WO95/15341)                               +1 start heavy chain                               CAGGTGAAACTGCAGCAG                               GlnValLysLeuGlnGln 6 TCTGGGGCAGAACTTGTGAGGTCAGGGACCTCAGTCAAGTTGTCCTGC SerGlyAlaGluLeuValArgSerGlyThrSerValLysLeuSerCys 22          CDR 1 ACAGCTTCTGGCTTCAACATTAAAGACTCCTATATGCACTGGTTGAGG ThrAlaSerGlyPheAsnIleLysAspSerTyrMetHisTrpLeuArg 38                                        CDR 2 CAGGGGCCTGAACAGGGCCTGGAGTGGATTGGATGGATTGATCCTGAG GlnGlyProGluGlnGlyLeuGluTrpIleGlyTrpIleAspProGlu 54 AATGGTGATACTGAATATGCCCCGAAGTTCCAGGGCAAGGCCACTTTT AsnGlyAspThrGluTyrAlaProLysPheGlnGlyLysAlaThrPhe 70 ACTACAGACACATCCTCCAACACAGCCTACCTGCAGCTCAGCAGCCTG ThrThrAspThrSerSerAsnThrAlaTyrLeuGlnLeuSerSerLeu 86                                        CDR 3 ACATCTGAGGACACTGCCGTCTATTATTGTAATGAGGGGACTCCGACT ThrSerGluAspThrAlaValTyrTyrCysAsnGluGlyThrProThr 102 GGGCCGTACTACTTTCACTACTGGGGCCAAGGGACCACGGTCACCGTC GlyProTyrTyrPheAspTyrTrpGlyGlnGlyThrThrValThrVal 118 TCCTCAGGTGGAGGCGGTTCAGGCGGAGGTGGCTCTGGCGGTGGCGGA SerSerGlyGlyGlyGlySerGlyGlyGlyGlySerGlyGlyGlyGly 134    +1 start light chain TCAGAAAATGTGCTCACCCAGTCTCCAGCAATCATGTCTGCATCTCCA SerGluAsnValLeuThrGlnSerProAlaIleMetSerAlaSerPro 150                               CDR 1 GGGGAGAAGGTCACCATAACCTGCAGTGCCAGCTCAAGTGTAAGTTAC GlyGluLysValThrIleThrCysSerAlaSerSerSerValSerTyr 166 ATGCACTGGTTCCAGCAGAAGCCAGGCACTTCTCCCAAACTCTGGATT MetHisTrpPheGlnGlnLysProGlyThrSerProLysLeuTrpIle 182    CDR 2 TATAGCACATCCAACCTGGCTTCTGGAGTCCCTGCTCGCTTCAGTGGC TyrSerThrSerAsnLeuAlaSerGlyValProAlaArgPheSerGly 198 AGTGGATCTGGGACCTCTTACTCTCTCACAATCAGCCGAATGGAGGCT SerGlySerGlyThrSerTyrSerLeuThrIleSerArgMetGluAla 214                               CDR 3 GAAGATGCTGCCACTTATTACTGCCAGCAAAGGAGTAGTTACCCACTC GluAspAlaAlaThrTyrTyrCysGlnGlnArgSerSerTyrProLeu 230 ACGTTCGGTGCTGGCACCAAGCTGGAGCTGAAACGGGCGGCC ThrPheGlyAlaGlyThrLysLeuGluLeuLysArgAlaAla 244

SEQ ID NO: 3/4—Nucleotide and amino acid sequence of hMFE-23

Sequence of fusion including HA tag, hMFE scFv, and c-myc tag. CDR loops of hMFE are boxed and in bold. Epitope tags are highlighted with a box. SEQ ID NO: 5/6—Nucleotide and amino acid sequence of sm3E

Sequence of surface display fusion including HA tag, sm3E scFv, and c-myc tag. CDR loops of the scFv are boxed and in bold. DNA changes are shown in lower case letters. Amino acid changes are capitalized and in bold italics. Epitope tags are highlighted with a box.

REFERENCES

Cited in Example 1 (and elsewhere)

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1. An antibody specific to carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) with a dissociation constant of less than 5.0 nM for said antigen and comprising the following six CDRs, as shown in SEQ ID NO:6 (with the exception of CDR (d)(ii)): (a) Heavy Chain CDR 1: gly phe asn ile lys asp ser; (b) Heavy Chain CDR 2: asp pro glu asn gly asp; (c) Heavy Chain CDR 3: thr pro thr gly pro tyr tyr phe asp; (d) Light Chain CDR 1: (i) ser ser ser val pro, or (ii) ser ser ser val ser; (e) Light Chain CDR 2: leu thr ser; (f) Light Chain CDR 3: arg ser ser tyr pro leu.
 2. An antibody of claim 1, said antibody comprising the sequence of the MFE-23 antibody of SEQ ID NO:2, said sequence having the following substitutions as shown in the sequence of the sm3E antibody of SEQ ID NO:6: (a) SV_(L)49L (Serine to Leucine in light chain CDR 2); and/or (b) FV_(L)35L (Phenylalanine to Leucine between light chain CDRs 1 and 2); and optionally (c) V_(L)S30P (Serine to Proline in light chain CDR 1); and/or (d) V_(L)A13V (Alanine to Valine in the light chain upstream of CDR 1); and/or (e) V_(L)W46L (Tryptophan to Leucine between light chain CDRs 1 and 2); and/or (f) VLM77V (Methionine to Valine between light chain CDRs 2 and 3); and optionally (g) substitution of up to 50 further amino acids outside the CDRs, and/or deletion of up to 20 amino acids outside the CDRs, and/or insertion of up to 20 amino acids outside the CDRs.
 3. An antibody of claim 2 comprising both substitutions (a) and (b).
 4. An antibody of claim 2 comprising two, three or four of substitutions (c)-(f).
 5. An antibody of claim 2 comprising all of substitutions (a)-(f).
 6. An antibody of claim 2 comprising one or more of the following further substitutions in the MFE-23 sequence of SEQ ID NO:2, as shown in the hMFE sequence of SEQ ID NO:4 SEQ ID NO: 2 Position SEQ ID NO: 4 gln 5 glu leu 11 val arg 13 lys ser 14 pro thr 16 ala thr 23 lys glu 42 gly gly 44 arg ser 76 ala gln 82 gly thr 87 arg ser 88 pro thr 115 leu ala 144 ser ile 145 ser pro 150 val glu 152 asp lys 153 arg thr 157 ala thr 176 lys ala 194 ser ser 204 asp arg 211 ser glu 213 gln ala 214 pro ala 234 gly leu 240 ile


7. An antibody of claim 6 comprising at least 5 of said further substitutions.
 8. An antibody of claim 7 comprising at least 15 of said further substitutions.
 9. An antibody of claim 8 comprising at least 25 of said further substitutions.
 10. An antibody of claim 2 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:6 from position +1 (start light chain) to the beginning of the c-myc tag.
 11. An antibody of claim 2 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:6 from position +1 (start heavy chain) to the beginning of the c-myc tag.
 12. An antibody of claim 2 comprising the amino acid sequence of SEQ ID NO:6.
 13. An antibody of claim 1 which binds CEA with a dissociation halftime of one day or more at 37° C.
 14. An antibody of claim 1 which has an off-rate 1000 or more times lower than MFE-23.
 15. An antibody to a tumor surface antigen, said antibody binding to said antigen with a dissociation halftime of one day or more at 37° C.
 16. An antibody of claim 13 which binds said antigen with a dissociation halftime of 3 days or more at 37° C.
 17. An antibody of claim 16 which binds said antigen with a dissociation half time of 5 days or more at 37° C.
 18. An antibody of claim 1 which has a dissociation constant of less than 1.0 nM for its antigen.
 19. An antibody of claim 18 which has a dissociation constant of less than 0.1 nM, or which has a dissociation constant of less than 0.05 nM.
 20. An antibody of claim 1 which has an off-rate of less than 5×10⁻⁶ s⁻¹.
 21. An antibody of claim 20 which has an off-rate of less than 1.5×10⁻⁶s⁻¹.
 22. An antibody of claim 15 wherein said antigen is carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA).
 23. An antibody of claim 1 which is an scFv.
 24. An antibody of claim 1 which is a fully or partly humanized antibody.
 25. An antibody of claim 1 having an antitumor agent or a detectable label attached thereto.
 26. A composition comprising an antibody of claim 1 and a carrier.
 27. A pharmaceutical composition comprising an antibody of claim 1 and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. 28-31. (canceled)
 32. A method of treating a patient suffering from a tumor, said method comprising administering an antibody of claim 1 to said patient.
 33. A method of claim 32 wherein said antibody has attached to it an anti-tumor agent.
 34. A method of detecting a tumor comprising administering to a patient suspected of suffering from said tumor an antibody of claim 1 attached to a detectable label and detecting said label.
 35. A method of claim 32 wherein said tumor is a breast or colorectal tumor.
 36. A nucleic acid sequence encoding an antibody of claim
 1. 37. A vector comprising a nucleic acid sequence of claim 36 operably linked to sequences capable of securing expression of said antibody in a host cell.
 38. A vector of claim 37 wherein said sequences are capable of securing expression in a yeast cell.
 39. A host cell comprising a vector of claim
 38. 40. A host cell of claim 39 which is a yeast cell.
 41. A method of producing an antibody of claim 1 comprising (a) expressing said antibody in a cell of claim 39 or 40, and (b) recovering said antibody, and optionally purifying said antibody, and optionally (c) purifying said antibody, and/or (d) attaching to said antibody an anti-tumor agent and/or a detectable label.
 42. A method of claim 33 wherein said tumor is a breast or colorectal tumor.
 43. A method of claim 34 wherein said tumor is a breast or colorectal tumor. 